Arc in optical light (Hubble)
Date: 11 February 2008
Satellite: Hubble Space Telescope
Depicts: ACS view centred on distant galaxy A1689-zD1
Copyright: NASA, ESA, L. Bradley (Johns Hopkins University), R. Bouwens (University of California, Santa Cruz), H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University), and G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz)
The massive cluster of galaxies Abell 1689 acts as a gravitational lens, bending and magnifying the light of the galaxies located far behind it. The faraway galaxies appear as arc-shaped objects around the cluster (for example in lower right part of this image, with the cluster of galaxies falling outside this close-up view). The increased magnification allows astronomers to study remote galaxies in greater detail.
This ACS image is centred on one of the most distant and youngest galaxies discovered to date: A1689-zD1. The galaxy is so distant it does not show up in this optical-light image, because its light is stretched to infrared wavelengths by the Universe's expansion. Instead Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer was used to reveal the distant galaxy in detail (see related images).
