This galaxy is the farthest into space we have ever seen

When you start talking about cosmic measurements, most people have a hard time truly comprehending the figures involved. They become abstract, conceptual -- so much larger than any human experience.

So the age of the universe just seems like a number, but it's a very big number: roughly 13.8 billion years. That means the "edge" of the universe is 13.8 billion light-years away -- so far away that we've never been able to observe it.

This latest breakthrough is something special: an ultra-luminous, light-blue galaxy known as EGS-zs8-1, located in the constellation of Boötes. It's now confirmed that EGS-zs8-1 is the oldest galaxy we've ever seen in the universe -- more than 13 billion light-years away, when the universe was only five percent of its current age.