Hubble Space Telescope captures colourful snapshot of our universe

This handout composite image provided by NASA shows the visible and near infrared light spectrum collected from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope over a nine-year period. (Provided / NASA)

WASHINGTON -- The Hubble Space Telescope has captured our cosmos at its most colorful.

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-colored galaxies.

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