In the centre of this image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, are two faint galaxies that seem to be smiling.The grinning figure actually shows an enormous galaxy cluster. SpaceTelescope.org explains:
"You can make out two orange eyes and a white button nose. In the case of this “happy face”, the two eyes are the galaxies and the misleading smile lines are actually arcs caused by an effect known as strong gravitational lensing.
Massive structures in the Universe exert such a powerful gravitational pull that they can warp the spacetime around them and act as cosmic lenses which can magnify, distort and bend the light behind them. This phenomenon, crucial to many of Hubble’s discoveries, can be explained by Einstein’s theory of general relativity."
What do you think about this cosmos smile? Does anyone else think it looks a tad sinister?
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