Fact Sheet
Lensing the Cosmos
Hundreds of galaxies and arcs of light highlight this Hubble Space Telescope image of Abell 1689, a cluster of galaxies containing a trillion stars or more. The gravity of the cluster bends the light of more-distant galaxies, creating the arcs of light that wrap around the brightest group of galaxies. Some of these "gravitationally lensed" galaxies may be more than 10 billion light-years away.
[NASA; N. Benitez, et al; ACS Science Team; ESA]
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