Is our Milky Way as old as some of the proto-galaxies seen in the Hubble Deep Field photograph?

Probably. The current age estimate for the Milky Way runs near that of the globular clusters which orbit it and have ages from 10 - 16 billion years. This brackets the estimated ages of the proto-galaxy clumps seen by the Hubble.

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All answers are provided by Dr. Sten Odenwald (Raytheon STX) for the
NASA IMAGE/POETRY Education and Public Outreach program.