The Hubble Space Telescope has revealed the earliest and deepest image of the universe to date.

The image provided by NASA catches the universe just 600 million years after the Big Bang.

Scientists released the photo on Tuesday at a press conference in Washington D.C., which reveals three newly-identified galaxies all compact and glowing a bright blue. Astronomers estimate that these galaxies are approximately 13.2 billion light years away – when the universe was only four per cent of its current age.

But in order to see galaxies from earlier times, NASA will have to rely on a new observatory – the James Webb telescope which is expected to launch in about four years and cost $4.5 billion.

“We are on the way to the beginning,” astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson of the American Museum of Natural History told The Associated Press.

“Every step closer to the beginning tells you something you did not know before.”