Hubble opens its eye on the universe and captures a cosmic magnifying glass | 24/01/2000 | ||
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Scanning
the heavens for the first time since the successful December 1999 servicing
mission, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a giant, cosmic magnifying
glass, a massive cluster of galaxies called Abell 2218. This "hefty"
cluster resides in the constellation Draco, some 2 billion light-years from
Earth.
Click image to go to a high resolution view. |
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Image
Credit:
NASA, A. Fruchter and the ERO
Team (STScI, ST-ECF). |
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Scanning the heavens for the first time since the successful December 1999 servicing mission, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a giant, cosmic magnifying glass, a massive cluster of galaxies called Abell 2218. This "hefty" cluster resides in the constellation Draco, some 2 billion light-years from Earth. | ![]() |
Abell
2218 is a massive cluster of galaxies which acts like a giant zoom lens
in space. The gravitational field of the cluster magnifies the light of
more distant galaxies far behind it, providing a deep probe of the very
distant universe. The cluster was imaged in full color, providing astronomers
with a spectacular and unique new view of the early universe.
"For the first time we can view the internal color structure of some very distant galaxies. This gives us new insight into details of what young galaxies are like," says Richard Ellis at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and University of Cambridge, England and a co-investigator on an earlier (black- and-white) Hubble image of Abell 2218 taken in 1994. "The color of a distant source is preserved by gravitational lensing. By matching images of the same color, families of multiple images produced by the lensing process can be identified." xx Andrew Fruchter, leader of the team who took the early release observations is particularly fascinated by an unusual red feature in the field. "This extraordinary object has colors which indicate it is one of two things, either a rare, extremely cool dwarf star in our own galaxy, or one of the most distant objects ever viewed by Hubble lensed into visibility by the mass of the cluster," says Fruchter. Further observations will be needed to confirm the identity of this unusual object. |
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