A Happy Universe

Written by The Guru.

 

See, the universe is a happy place...

This photo, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed a happy face produced by two faint galaxies. The two orange eyes of the smiley face are galaxies SDSSCGB 8842.3 and SDSSCGB 8842.4, while the smile is an artifact of light bending due to what is known as strong gravitational lensing. 

Galactic structures can exert a gravitational field strong enough to bend light around them. This phenomenon, predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, is called appropriately enough, an Einstein Ring, and is produced as a consequence of the exact and symmetrical alignment of the source, lens and observer, resulting in the ring-like structure seen here.

Images Courtesy of: NASA/ESA

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