Hubble sees giant lensed galaxy arc
Thanks to the presence of a natural "zoom lens" in space, this is a close-up look at the brightest distant "magnified" galaxy in the Universe known to date. It is one of the most striking examples of gravitational lensing, where the gravitational field of a foreground galaxy bends and amplifies the light of a more distant background galaxy. In this image the light from a distant galaxy, nearly 10 billion light-years away, has been warped into a nearly 90-degree arc of light in the galaxy cluster RCS2 032727-132623. The galaxy cluster lies 5 billion light-years away. The background galaxy's image is over three times brighter than typically lensed galaxies. The natural-colour image was taken in March 2011 with the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3.
Credit:About the Image
About the Object
Name: | RCS2 032727-132623, RCSGA 032727-132609 |
Type: | Early Universe : Galaxy : Grouping : Cluster |
Constellation: | Eridanus |
Category: | Cosmology |
Wallpapers
Coordinates
Position (RA): | 3 27 28.41 |
Position (Dec): | -13° 26' 36.41" |
Field of view: | 1.30 x 0.88 arcminutes |
Orientation: | North is 53.0° left of vertical |
Colours & filters
Band | Wavelength | Telescope |
---|---|---|
Optical C | 390 nm |
Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3 |
Optical V | 606 nm |
Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3 |
Optical I | 814 nm |
Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3 |
Infrared J | 1.25 μm |
Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3 |
Infrared Redshifted Paschen b | 1.32 μm |
Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3 |
Infrared H | 1.6 μm |
Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3 |
Optical Z | 986 nm |
Hubble Space Telescope
WFC3 |