Hubble Looks Through Cosmic Zoom Lens (6 cropped images)
A selection of cropped images from a NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys view of one of the most massive galaxy clusters known, called Abell 1689. These close-ups show 'lensed' images of background galaxies that have been brightened and smeared by the gravitational bending of light by the foreground cluster.
The yellow-white objects are the cluster galaxies located 2.2 billion light-years away. The blue arcs are the distorted images of background galaxies located billions of light-years farther away than Abell 1689.
The distribution of both 'normal' and dark matter, and the alignment of the background galaxies determine the amount of distortion. In a perfectly aligned gravitational lens the background object would be smeared into an 'Einstein ring.' Instead, there are numerous ring sections or arcs corresponding to individual galaxies.
Credit:
About the Image
NASA caption
| Id: | opo0301b |
| Type: | Collage |
| Release date: | 7 January 2003, 18:20 |
| Size: | 3000 x 2400 px |
About the Object
| Name: | Abell 1689 |
| Type: | • Early Universe : Galaxy : Grouping : Supercluster |
| Distance: | z=0.183 (redshift) |
Colours & filters
| Band | Wavelength | Telescope |
| Optical B |
475 nm | Hubble Space Telescope ACS |
| Optical R |
625 nm | Hubble Space Telescope ACS |
| Infrared I |
775 nm | Hubble Space Telescope ACS |
| Infrared Z |
850 nm | Hubble Space Telescope ACS |
