Photo - A Galaxy Cluster Lens (a NASA digitally reprocessed image)
Those strange filaments are background galaxies. Gravity bends light, allowing huge clusters of galaxies to act as telescopes, and distorting images of background galaxies into elongated strands. Almost all of the bright objects in this Hubble Space Telescope image are galaxies in the cluster known as Abell 2218. The cluster is so massive and so compact that its gravity bends and focuses the light from galaxies that lie behind it. As a result, multiple images of these background galaxies are distorted into long faint arcs -- a simple lensing effect analogous to viewing distant street lamps through a glass of wine. The cluster of galaxies Abell 2218 is itself about three billion light-years away in the northern constellation of the Dragon (Draco).
The following pages have been recently updated
06/27/10 - Photo & note from Judy Donahue
06/16/10 - Photo from Bob in Boise
05/28/10 - Lunenburg Houses
05/09/10 - Two Ted Kooser Poems
04/26/10 - Bruce & Abby hit the slopes
04/05/10 - Kathryn & Bob bring the truck home
03/26/10 - Carol Van discovers Bill Darlington in Florida
03/06/10 - Kathryn Judd's new truck
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