The "Deepest" View of the Universe to Date

High res web optimized image -- click to enlarge

NASA's Hubble site has released a new super high resolution photograph going back 13.2 billion years into the past (the Universe is 13.7 billion years old). As described by the Hubble site:

Called the eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, the photo was assembled by combining 10 years of NASA Hubble Space Telescope photographs taken of a patch of sky at the center of the original Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The XDF is a small fraction of the angular diameter of the full Moon.

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is an image of a small area of space in the constellation Fornax, created using Hubble Space Telescope data from 2003 and 2004. By collecting faint light over many hours of observation, it revealed thousands of galaxies, both nearby and very distant, making it the deepest image of the universe ever taken at that time.

NASA's and Hubble's photos are free to the public since they're created with public funds. Very high resolution versions of the photo above right can be downladed from the Hubble site through this link. The original Hubble Deep Field photograph (called by some the most important photograph ever taken) can be found here.  This was followed by the Ultra Deep Field, photos found here. And here is a really cool (and educational on basic stuff) video of the Ultra Deep Field in 3D. Via MetaFilter.