Our view of the cosmos is veiled by dust and the universe actually shines twice as bright as astronomers had thought, a discovery that will lead to a massive reevaluation of space images. The Hubble space telescope is perhaps the best known source of the many majestic views of the heavens provided by modern astronomy.

But it turns out that many images will have to be reassessed, after the discovery that a tiny amount of the matter in the universe - about 0.01 per cent of normal matter - causes a haze of dust that obscures our view like a pair cosmic sunglasses. The implications for understanding how the very first galaxies - huge masses of stars - evolved after the big bang 13.7 billion years ago are “scary”, said Dr Simon Driver from the University of St Andrews, one of the international team.

In effect, the find means that people have underestimated the size and brightness of distant galaxies and this realisation will have a profound impact on understanding how they winked into being (source)