The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is the deepest image we've ever taken (well, the deepest optical image, otherwise the prize goes to images of the CMB). It was created by collecting distant light over 11 days, and every dot, blob, and smudge in the image is a distant galaxy. All in all, the image is thought to contain roughly 10,000 galaxies. It took years to comb the image for objects of interest (and research is ongoing), and in 2009 one especially interesting smudge was noticed. Named 'UDFy-38135539', the nearly invisible smudge is the oldest galaxy known to date (some potentially older ones have not be confirmed). UDFy-38135539, as it appears in the image, is 13.1 billion light years away, however because of the expansion of the universe it (or whatever is now left of it) is now around 30 billion light years away. In 2018 the James Webb Space Telescope will be launched, and be able to peer even further into the cosmos.
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