NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this scene of
galaxy cluster MACS J1141.6-1905 in visible and infrared light.
NASA, ESA, H. Ebeling (University of Hawaii); Image
Processing: G. Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
Look closely at this image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and
you’ll see galaxies of various shapes and sizes clustered together toward the
center-left of the image. A few foreground stars shine brightly and are easily
distinguished by the spikes that appear to extend outward from each star. These
spikes, called diffraction spikes, are the result of how point sources of light (such as stars) bend, or
diffract, around the supports for Hubble’s secondary mirror.
Hubble captured this scene of MACS
J1141.6-1905 in visible and infrared light. The image includes data from two
Hubble observing programs that looked at massive galaxy clusters that shine
very brightly in X-rays. Both programs were looking for distant galaxies
gravitationally lensed by the cluster. They also wanted to better understand
the physical nature of interactions at each cluster’s core. An extra bonus was
the addition of Hubble’s visible and infrared observations of these very bright
X-ray clusters to its archive.
Hubble’s archive of 1.7 million
observations, and counting, is a valuable tool for current and future
astronomers. They can mine Hubble’s 36 years of observations and examine the
data with new tools, enabling researchers to make new discoveries.
MACS J1141.6-1905 is around four billion light-years away in the constellation Crater (the Cup).
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