ESA Science & Technology - The most distant gravitational lens yet discovered

This picture from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the most distant gravitational lens yet discovered. The glow at the centre of this picture is the central regions of a normal galaxy. By chance it is precisely aligned with a much more remote, young star-forming galaxy. The light from the more distant object is bent around the nearer object by its strong gravitational pull to form a ring of multiple images. The chance of finding such an exact alignment is very small, suggesting that there may be more star-forming galaxies in the early Universe than expected.