By The Iowa Statesman
Whomever said God doesn’t have a sense of humor hasn’t seen a platypus or the latest images released from NASA. The Hubble Space Telescope recently snapped a photo of a galaxy cluster that provides — from Earth’s perspective — a constellation that most people will easily recognize.
Amateur star gazer Judy Schmidt discovered the cluster — shaped like a smiley face — in an HST image. NASA recently released the image, along with an explanation for its interesting characteristics.
Its two bright glowing eyes are in fact separate galaxies, while the face and smile itself are distinct due to the celestial effect known as “strong gravitational lensing.”
“Galaxy clusters are the most massive structures in the Universe and exert such a powerful gravitational pull that they warp the spacetime around them and act as cosmic lenses which can magnify, distort and bend the light behind them,” the Hubble website explains, citing Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
Follow Us