The galaxy — which has the decidedly non-sexy name of GN-z11 — was tracked by University of Tokyo astronomer Nobunari Kashikawa and his team, via Space.com. How are they able to calculate the distance between us and GN-z11? It’s not like they use a tape measure — they take a look at what its light spectrum looks like. If it is far away, then it will likely be at the high end of the red spectrum. The team combined this knowledge with the study of chemical signatures in the light that was emitted from the galaxy. The main area of interest for them was ultraviolet light, since the Hubble telescope, which orbits the Earth, saw this frequently from the galaxy.

As mighty as the Hubble is, Kashikawa and his staff also had to enlist the aid of a spectrograph called MOSFIRE in Hawaii to be able to see all the ultraviolet that they needed to make their determination on how far GN-z11 was. It’s not set in stone — other observations need to be made — but it looks like it is the most distant galaxy at 13.4 billion light-years away.

Remember, this is supposed to be the furthest detectable galaxy. But astronomers are always working on new ways to peer out into the universe, and they will hopefully be launching the James Webb telescope in the near future. Per NASA, researchers believe this device will be able to look even further out than the Hubble telescope thanks to its larger field of view. Indeed, GN-z11 might be relegated to lower down the list of furthest detectable galaxies.