APOD: 2025 April 21 Б Galaxy Lenses Galaxy from Webb
21.04.2025

Is this one galaxy or two? Although it looks like one, the answer is two. One path to this happening is when a small galaxy collides with a larger galaxy and ends up in the center. But in the featured image, something more rare is going on.

Gravity s Grin
11.05.2022

Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, published over 100 years ago, predicted the phenomenon of gravitational lensing. And that's what gives these distant galaxies such a whimsical appearance, seen through the looking glass of X-ray and optical image data from the Chandra and Hubble space telescopes.

Abell 3827: Cannibal Cluster Gravitational Lens
23.08.2021

Is that one galaxy or three? Toward the right of the featured Hubble image of the massive galaxy cluster Abell 3827 is what appears to be a most unusual galaxy -- curved and with three centers.

APOD: 2023 January 18 Б MACS0647: Gravitational Lensing of the Early Universe by Webb
18.01.2023

Gravitational lensing by the galaxy cluster MACS0647 -- in which the massive foreground cluster distorts and lenses the light emitted by distant background galaxies along the line of sight Б is on vivid display here in this recent multi-color infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Galaxy Einstein Ring
20.04.2016

Can one galaxy hide behind another? Not in the case of SDP.81. Here the foreground galaxy, shown in blue in an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, acts like a huge gravitational...

Abell 370: Galaxy Cluster Gravitational Lens
28.08.2016

What is that strange arc? While imaging the cluster of galaxies Abell 370, astronomers had noted an unusual arc to the right of many cluster galaxies. Although curious, one initial response was to avoid commenting on the arc because nothing like it had ever been noted before.

Galaxy Cluster Abell 370 and Beyond
6.05.2017

Some 4 billion light-years away, massive galaxy cluster Abell 370 only appears to be dominated by two giant elliptical galaxies and infested with faint arcs in this sharp Hubble Space Telescope snapshot. The fainter...

The Einstein Cross Gravitational Lens
27.03.2005

Most galaxies have a single nucleus -- does this galaxy have four? The strange answer leads astronomers to conclude that the nucleus of the surrounding galaxy is not even visible in this image. The central cloverleaf is rather light emitted from a background quasar.

Ring Around the Galaxy
23.12.1998

It is difficult to hide one galaxy far behind another. The closer galaxy's gravity will act like a huge lens, pulling images of the background galaxy around both sides. This is just...

Galaxy Cluster Abell 1689 Deflects Light
17.09.2013

It is one of the most massive objects in the visible universe. In this view from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys, Abell 1689 is seen to warp space as predicted by Einstein's theory of gravity -- deflecting light from individual galaxies which lie behind the cluster to produce multiple, curved images.