Gravity is so much a part of our daily lives that it is all too easy to forget its awesome power — but on a galactic scale, its power becomes both strikingly clear and visually stunning. This image was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope and shows an object named SDSS J1138+2754. This massive cluster of galaxies is creating such a strong gravitational field that it is bending the very fabric of its surroundings. This causes the billion-year-old light from galaxies sitting behind it to travel along distorted, curved paths, transforming the familiar shapes of spirals and ellipticals into long, smudged arcs and scattered dashes. Some distant galaxies even appear multiple times in this image.
Since galaxies are wide objects, light from one side of the galaxy passes through the gravitational lens differently than light from the other side. When the galaxies’ light reaches Earth it can appear reflected, as seen with the galaxy on the lower left part of the lens, or distorted, as seen with the galaxy to the upper right.
For more information, visit: www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1837a/
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt
Find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube
Tags: SDSS J1138+2754 ESA NASA space astronomy cosmos Hubble Hubble Space Telescope gravitational lens gravitational lenses galaxy cluster galaxy clusters galaxies HST
This image shows a massive galaxy cluster embedded in the middle of a field of nearly 8,000 galaxies scattered across space and time. This "galaxies galore" snapshot is from a Hubble Space Telescope survey to enlarge the area around huge galaxy clusters previously photographed by Hubble.
In this view the huge cluster Abell 370, located about 4 billion light-years away, lies in the center of this image. It contains several hundred galaxies.
Massive galaxy clusters like Abell 370 are mainly composed of dark matter. Their large masses distort space, turning them into gravitational lenses that magnify and distort the light coming from distant background galaxies. This allows the discovery of background galaxies and supernovas that are so distant and faint that they could not have been photographed by Hubble without the aid of this additional gravitational amplification.
This image is part of the Beyond Ultra-deep Frontier Fields And Legacy Observations (BUFFALO) survey.
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2018/39/4229-Image.html
Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Koekemoer (STScI), M. Jauzac (Durham University), C. Steinhardt (Niels Bohr Institute), and the BUFFALO team
Find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube
Tags: Abell 370 NASA space astronomy cosmos Hubble Hubble Space Telescope gravitational lens gravitational lenses galaxy cluster galaxy clusters galaxies HST
Galaxy clusters are enormous collections of hundreds or even thousands of galaxies and vast reservoirs of hot gas embedded in massive clouds of dark matter, invisible material that does not emit or absorb light but can be detected through its gravitational effects.
MACS J0717.5+3745, one of the most complex and distorted galaxy clusters known, is the site of a collision between four clusters. It is located about 5.4 billion light-years away from Earth.
This image of MACS J0717 contain data from two other telescopes in addition to the Hubble Space Telescope: NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (diffuse emission in blue), Hubble Space Telescope (red, green, and blue), and the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (diffuse emission in pink). Where the X-ray and radio emission overlap the image appears purple.
The Chandra data show gas in the merging clusters with temperatures of millions of degrees. The Hubble data show galaxies in the clusters and other, more distant, galaxies lying behind the clusters. Some of these background galaxies are highly distorted and magnified because of gravitational lensing, the bending of light by massive objects. Finally, the structures in the radio data trace enormous shock waves and turbulence. The shocks are similar to sonic booms, generated by the mergers of the clusters.
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2016/news-2016-08.html
For a Hubble-only image of MACS J0717, see: esahubble.org/images/heic1523b/
Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, NRAO/AUI/NSF, STScI, R. van Weeren (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), and G. Ogrean (Stanford University); Acknowledgment: NASA, ESA, J. Lotz (STScI), and the HFF team
Find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube
Tags: MACS J0717.5+3745 Frontier Fields Chandra X-Ray Observatory Very Large Array MACS J0717 NASA space astronomy cosmos Hubble Hubble Space Telescope gravitational lens gravitational lenses galaxy cluster galaxy clusters galaxies HST
The starburst galaxy formally known as PLCK G045.1+61.1 appears here as multiple reddish dots near the center of this image. The distant galaxy is being gravitationally lensed by a cluster of closer galaxies that are also visible in this image. Gravitational lensing occurs when a large distribution of matter, such as a galaxy cluster, sits between Earth and a distant light source. Because space is warped by massive objects, the light from the distant object bends as it travels to us.
For more information, visit: www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw2024a/
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, B. Frye
Find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube
Tags: PLCK G045.1+61.1 galaxy galaxies gravitational lensing gravitational lens Space universe Hubble Hubble Space Telescope astronomy cosmos NASA ESA
A massive galaxy cluster in the constellation Cetus dominates the center of this image from the Hubble Space Telescope. This image is populated with a serene collection of elliptical and spiral galaxies, but galaxies surrounding the central cluster – which is named SPT-CL J0019-2026 – appear stretched into bright arcs, as if distorted by a gargantuan magnifying glass. This cosmic contortion, called a gravitational lens, occurs when the powerful gravitational field of a massive object like a galaxy cluster distorts and magnifies the light from background objects. These objects would normally be too distant and faint to observe, but the magnifying power of the gravitational lens extends Hubble’s view even deeper into the universe.
This observation is part of an ongoing project to fill short gaps in Hubble’s observing schedule by systematically exploring the most massive galaxy clusters in the distant universe, in the hopes of identifying promising targets for further study with both Hubble and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. This particular galaxy cluster lies at a vast distance of 4.6 billion light-years from Earth.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, H. Ebeling
For more information, visit: science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-observes-cosmic-c...
Find us on X, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube
Tags: 2MASX J00190792-2026281 SPT-CL J0019-2026 NASA Hubble ESA Hubble Space Telescope telescope space telescope cosmos universe space cosmic astronomy galaxy galaxy cluster gravitational lens cosmic lens lensing cluster