Media Information
 
 
 
Collection:
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection
Title:
Giant Cluster Bends, Breaks Images
Explanation:
What are those strange blue objects? Many are images of a "single," unusual, beaded, blue, ring-like galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] which just happens to line-up behind a giant cluster of galaxies. [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] Cluster galaxies here appear yellow and -- together with the cluster's dark matter [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] -- act as a gravitational lens [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. A gravitational lens [ http://cfa-www.harv…] can create several images of background galaxies, analogous to the many points of light one would see while looking through a wine glass [ http://vela.astro.u…] at a distant street light. The distinctive shape of this background galaxy [ http://www.journals…] -- which is probably just forming -- has allowed astronomers to deduce that it has separate images at 4, 8, 9 and 10 o'clock, from the center of the cluster. Possibly even the blue smudge just left of center is yet another image! This spectacular photo from the Hubble Space Telescope [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] was taken in October 1994.
Credit and Copyright:
W. N. Colley & E. Turner (Princeton [ http://astro.prince…]), J.A. Tyson (Lucent Technologies [ http://www.lucent.c…]), HST [ http://oposite.stsc…], NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/]
keyword:
gravitational lensing
keyword:
cluster of galaxies
facet_when:
October 1994
facet_where:
Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
facet_what:
Vela
facet_what:
Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
facet_when_year:
1994
original url:
http://antwrp.gsfc.…
UID:
SPD-APOD-ap000423

Giant Cluster Bends, Breaks Images
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