ESA Science & Technology - Abell 2218

This image shows the region of the sky centred on the massive galaxy cluster, Abell 2218, as seen with the SPIRE instrument on Herschel.

The large yellow blob just below the centre of the image is a much more distant galaxy. The light from this distant galaxy is being bent and magnified by the immense mass of the Abell 2218 cluster, allowing astronomers to see it in more detail than would otherwise be possible without this chance alignment. It is seen as it was around 2.6 thousand million years after the Big Bang, providing a glimpse into the Universe's history.

The other structures in the image are largely due to much closer, fainter galaxies.

Abell 2218 is located some 2 thousand million light-years from Earth.