The Hubble Space Telescope's glamour shots of the universe nearly always have a discovery behind them.
In this image, a remote galaxy is greatly magnified
and distorted by the effects of gravitationally warped space. After its public
release, astronomers used the picture to measure the galaxy's distance of 9.4
billion light-years. This places the galaxy at the peak epoch of star formation
in cosmic evolution.
In this particular snapshot, a science discovery
followed the release of a Hubble observation of a striking example of a deep-space
optical phenomenon dubbed an "Einstein ring."
The photo was released in December 2020 as an example of one of the
largest, nearly complete Einstein rings ever seen.
Image Credit:
ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Jha; Acknowledgment: L. Shatz
Source: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/hubble-snapshot-of-molten-ring-galaxy-prompts-new-research
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