NASA snaps cosmic colour portrait

A new NASA panorama has peered deep and far into the universe for the first time to show galaxies spinning in a bright baby blue.

Astronomers have assembled a comprehensive picture of the universe, among the most colourful deep space images ever captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA)

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the cosmos at its most colourful.

A new NASA panorama looking deep and far into the universe for the first time includes ultraviolet light, which is normally not visible to the human eye. It shows up in the photo as bright baby blue with spinning galaxies, which are about 5 to 10 billion years old, not too old or young in cosmic terms.

The photo is a composite of more than 800 photos taken by Hubble and shows about 10,000 multi-coloured galaxies.

Hubble astronomer Zolt Levay says by adding ultraviolet and infrared to the pictures, people can now see the universe in the broad spectrum of colour "and then some."