Say cheese! Hubble Telescope spots smiley face in space, The grinning figure actually shows an enormous galaxy cluster. SpaceTelescope.org explains:
“In the case of this ‘happy face’, the two eyes are very bright galaxies and the misleading smile lines are actually arcs caused by an effect known as strong gravitational lensing.
Galaxy clusters are the most massive structures in the Universe and exert such a powerful gravitational pull that they warp the spacetime around them and act as cosmic lenses which can magnify, distort and bend the light behind them.”
The smirking smile and the contours of the face are caused by that warping and bending of light around the cluster. The effect is also known as “Einstein ring.”
Artist Judy Schmidt first brought the smile’s attention to NASA and the European Space Agency after she sifted through Hubble’s science archives and sent the image into “Hubble’s Hidden Treasures” contest. NASA released the image Monday.
Agencies/Canadajournal
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