(This press release from April
24, 1996, is reproduced courtesy of the Space Telescope Science Institute.)
This Hubble Space Telescope image shows several blue, loop-shaped
objects that actually are multiple images of the same galaxy. They
have been duplicated by the gravitational lens of the cluster of
yellow, elliptical and spiral galaxies - called 0024+1654 - near the
photograph’s center. The gravitational lens is produced by the
cluster’s tremendous gravitational field that bends light to magnify,
brighten and distort the image of a more distant object. How distorted
the image becomes and how many copies are made depends on the alignment
between the foreground cluster and the more distant galaxy, which is
behind the cluster.
In this photograph, light from the distant galaxy bends as it passes
through the cluster, dividing the galaxy into five separate images.
One image is near the center of the photograph; the others are at 6, 7,
8, and 2 o’clock. The light also has distorted the galaxy’s image from
a normal spiral shape into a more arc-shaped object. Astronomers are
certain the blue-shaped objects are copies of the same galaxy because
the shapes are similar. The cluster is 5 billion light-years away in
the constellation Pisces, and the blue-shaped galaxy is about 2 times
farther away.
Though the gravitational light-bending process is not new, Hubble’s
high resolution image reveals structures within the blue-shaped galaxy
that astronomers have never seen before. Some of the structures are as
small as 300 light-years across. The bits of white imbedded in the
blue galaxy represent young stars; the dark core inside the ring is
dust, the material used to make stars. This information, together with
the blue color and unusual “lumpy” appearance, suggests a young,
star-making galaxy.
The picture was taken October 14, 1994 with the Wide Field Planetary
Camera-2. Separate exposures in blue and red wavelengths were taken to
construct this color picture.
CREDIT: W.N. Colley and E. Turner (Princeton University),
J.A. Tyson (Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies) and NASA
