File:A Handful of Galaxies and a Gravitational Lens.jpg
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Summary[edit]
| Description |
English: The jumble of galaxies in this Hubble Space Telescope image, taken in September 2003, includes a yellow spiral whose arms have been stretched by a possible collision (lower right); a young, blue galaxy (top) bursting with star birth; and several smaller, red galaxies. But the most peculiar-looking galaxy of the bunch — the dramatic blue arc in the center of the photo — is actually an optical illusion.
The blue arc is an image of a distant galaxy that has been smeared into the odd shape by a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. This "funhouse-mirror effect" occurs when light from a distant object is bent and stretched by the mass of an intervening object. In this case the gravitational lens, or intervening object, is a red elliptical galaxy nearly 6 billion light-years from Earth. The red color suggests that the galaxy contains old, cool stars. The distant object whose image is smeared into the long blue arc is about 10 billion light-years away. This ancient galaxy existed just a few billion years after the Big Bang, when the universe was about a quarter of its present age. The blue color indicates that the galaxy contains hot, young stars. Gravitational lenses can be seen throughout the sky because the cosmos is crowded with galaxies. Light from distant galaxies, therefore, cannot always travel through space without another galaxy getting in the way. It is like walking through a crowded airport. In space, a faraway galaxy's light will travel through a galaxy that is in the way. But if the galaxy is massive enough, its gravity will bend and distort the light. Long arcs, such as the one in this image, are commonly seen in large clusters of galaxies because of their huge concentrations of mass. But they are not as common in isolated galaxies such as this one. For the gravitational lens to occur, the galaxies must be almost perfectly aligned with each other. For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2004-21 Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Blakeslee and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University) |
| Date | |
| Source | https://www.flickr.com/photos/144614754@N02/39740753443/ |
| Author | NASA Hubble |
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This image was originally posted to Flickr by NASA Hubble at https://flickr.com/photos/144614754@N02/39740753443 (archive). It was reviewed on 26 February 2020 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0. |
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| current | 21:26, 26 February 2020 | | 1,087 × 1,087 (228 KB) | Killarnee (talk | contribs) | User created page with UploadWizard |
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