--- title: See a Swarm of Galaxies in a Single Photo description: NASA spotted this rare group of galaxies, known as IDCS 1426, and used three space telescopes to compose the image and make its most detailed study yet of an extremely massive young galaxy cluster. According to the agency, the cluster is located 10 billion light years from Earth and weighs almost 500 trillion Suns canonical: https://time.com/4172276/nasa-galaxy-cluster-photo/ author: TIME Photo article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-08T14:47:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T13:53:27.582Z article:section: Science og:title: See a Swarm of Galaxies in a Single Photo og:description: NASA spotted this rare group of galaxies, known as IDCS 1426, and used three space telescopes to compose the image and make its most detailed study yet of an extremely massive young galaxy cluster. According to the agency, the cluster is located 10 billion light years from Earth and weighs almost 500 trillion Suns og:url: https://time.com/4172276/nasa-galaxy-cluster-photo/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltabc91d6b743a650a/69887818f887dc61d4e940ad/idcs1426.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: idcs1426 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: See a Swarm of Galaxies in a Single Photo twitter:description: NASA spotted this rare group of galaxies, known as IDCS 1426, and used three space telescopes to compose the image and make its most detailed study yet of an extremely massive young galaxy cluster. According to the agency, the cluster is located 10 billion light years from Earth and weighs almost 500 trillion Suns twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltabc91d6b743a650a/69887818f887dc61d4e940ad/idcs1426.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # See a Swarm of Galaxies in a Single Photo by [TIME Photo](/author/time-photo/) ## TIME Photo Jan 8, 2016 2:47 PM CUT  X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Missouri/M.Brodwin et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; Infrared: JPL/CalTech by [TIME Photo](/author/time-photo/) ## TIME Photo Jan 8, 2016 2:47 PM CUT ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4172276/nasa-galaxy-cluster-photo/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4172276/nasa-galaxy-cluster-photo/"},"headline":"See a Swarm of Galaxies in a Single Photo","datePublished":"2016-01-08T14:47:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:53:27.582Z","description":"NASA spotted this rare group of galaxies, known as IDCS 1426, and used three space telescopes to compose the image and make its most detailed study yet of an extremely massive young galaxy cluster. According to the agency, the cluster is located 10 billion light years from Earth and weighs almost 500 trillion Suns","url":"https://time.com/4172276/nasa-galaxy-cluster-photo/","keywords":["Space","one-pic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltabc91d6b743a650a/69887818f887dc61d4e940ad/idcs1426.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Photo","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-photo/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltabc91d6b743a650a/69887818f887dc61d4e940ad/idcs1426.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"idcs1426","caption":"","creditText":"X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Missouri/M.Brodwin et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; Infrared: JPL/CalTech","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/space/","name":"Space"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4172276/nasa-galaxy-cluster-photo/","name":"See a Swarm of Galaxies in a Single Photo"}}]}] ```