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Hubble’s Gravitational Lenses

Witness an Einstein-predicted phenomenon that magnifies light from far-distant galaxies through the gaze of the Hubble Space Telescope.

This Hubble image features a massive cluster of brightly glowing galaxies, first identified as Abell 3192. Like all galaxy clusters,...
A cluster of galaxies, concentrated around what appear to be two large elliptical galaxies. The rest of the black background is covered in smaller galaxies of all shapes and sizes. In the top left and bottom right, beside the two large galaxies, some galaxies appear notably distorted into curves by gravity.
The massive cluster Abell 3322 is featured in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, in which the galaxy...
A cluster of elliptical galaxies, visible as a crowd of oval shapes, each glowing around a bright core. The elliptical galaxy that appears largest by far is in the center, with the other largest galaxies close to it. They are surrounded by a variety of more distant stars and galaxies, in many shapes and sizes but all much smaller, on a dark background.
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a monster in the making in this observation of the exceptional galaxy cluster eMACS...
A cluster of elliptical galaxies, visible as a dense crowd of oval shapes, each glowing orange around a bright core. Various other galaxies are dotted all around, a few being small spirals. A bright star with four long spikes stands out at the right.
A massive galaxy cluster in the constellation Cetus dominates the center of this image from the Hubble Space Telescope. This...
A cluster of large galaxies, surrounded by various stars and smaller galaxies on a dark background. The central cluster is mostly made of bright elliptical galaxies that are surrounded by a warm glow. Nearby the cluster is the stretched, distorted arc of a galaxy, gravitationally lensed by the cluster.
This packed Hubble Space Telescope image showcases the galaxy cluster ACO S 295, as well as a jostling crowd of...
A cluster of various types of galaxies, visible as a dense crowd of oval shapes. Two spiral galaxies are especially prominent near the center, and another in the upper right, where the lensing effect is best visible.
This detailed image features Abell 3827, a galaxy cluster that offers a wealth of exciting possibilities for study. It was...
A black background dotted with galaxies. Image center holds a trio of galaxies forming a triangle, with a fourth to the left, and a distinct arc nearly surrounding it.
This extraordinary image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the galaxy cluster Abell 2813 (also known as ACO 2813)...
Black background is dotted with distant galaxies. Image center holds a cluster of galaxies, many of the appear to be large elliptical galaxies. Curved orange-yellow lines appear to cut through the galaxy cluster. These are more distant galaxies gravitationally lensed by the cluster.
The center of this image from the Hubble Space Telescope is framed by the tell-tale arcs that result from strong...
A field full of distant galaxies on a dark background. Most of the galaxies appear small, but there are a few larger galaxies and some stars where detail is visible. In the very center is an elliptical galaxy with a brightly glowing core and a broad disk. A reddish, warped, ring of light, mainly made up of two arcs on the right side, surrounds its core, as do two wispy-white galaxies (one on the left, one on the upper right) that seem to have bluish "tails" flowing out behind them.
Clustered at the center of this image are six luminous spots of light, four of them forming a circle around...
Black background dotted with galaxies. Two reddish galaxies are next to each other as two vertical dots at image center with a reddish-orange ring curving almost completely around it, with four white dots around the ring.
This star- and galaxy-studded image was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. The object of interest was a galaxy that...
A cluster of various types of galaxies, visible as oval shapes in clumps. Two spiral galaxies are especially prominent near the center, and another on the right, where the lensing effect is best visible as a reddish curve with a bright star next to it and the same distorted galaxy appearing several times.
The narrow galaxy elegantly curving around its spherical companion in this image is a fantastic example of a truly strange...
A black background dotted with galaxies. Image center holds a cluster of galaxies with a distinct arc nearly surrounding it.
Each of these Hubble Space Telescope snapshots reveals four distorted images of a background quasar surrounding the central core of...
Four images of quasars, each appearing duplicated due to effects of gravitational lensing. The two lower images have four white dots around the edge of a ring around a yellow dot in the middle. The two upper images show a thicker, more distorted ring around the center, while the white dots around the edges are smaller.
The starburst galaxy formally known as PLCK G045.1+61.1 appears here as multiple reddish dots near the center of this image....
Starburst galaxy plck g045.1+61.1: a bunch of bright smears of light against the black backdrop of space, with a clump near the center that have the circular lensing effect.
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope photo reveals a cosmic kaleidoscope of a remote galaxy, which has been split into multiple...
A field full of distant galaxies on a dark background. Most of the galaxies appear small, but there are a few larger galaxies and some stars where detail is visible. In the very center is a brightly-glowing red elliptical galaxy and a broad disk. A whitish, warped, ring of light--a large arc in the upper-right and a smaller one in the lower-left- surrounds its core at a distance. Several bright stars are visible with the "crosshair" patterns across them, two beside each other on the bottom-right, another on the left, and a few more smaller ones scattered around.
The Hubble Space Telescope has some amazing superpowers, specifically when it comes to observing galaxies across time and space. One...
A packed field of galaxies and curved blue streaks and arcs. Large grouping of galaxies warped around what appears to be a giant lens. Each galaxy appears as a glob of light. Bright blue-white foreground star at bottom right.
This image shows a massive galaxy cluster embedded in the middle of a field of nearly 8,000 galaxies scattered across...
A packed field of galaxies and curved blue streaks and arcs. Large grouping of galaxies warped around what appears to be a giant lens. Each galaxy appears as a glob of light. Bright blue-white foreground star at lower-center and upper left, and bright white foreground galaxies at upper-right.
The gravity of this massive galaxy cluster, MACS J2129-0741, magnifies, brightens, and distorts the images of remote background galaxies, making...
A bunch of bright dots, spheres, and spirals of light (mostly red-orange, with some blue and white) against the black backdrop of space, with a clump near the center that have the circular lensing effect. A bright blue foreground star in the upper-right.
In the center of the image is the immense galaxy cluster Abell S1063, located 4 billion light-years away and surrounded...
Massive cluster of galaxies with a gravitational lensing distortion effect.
Galaxy clusters are enormous collections of hundreds or even thousands of galaxies and vast reservoirs of hot gas embedded in...
A black background is dotted with galaxies and a few foreground stars. Most of the center, from the lower-left to upper right, is filled with translucent blobs of various shades of blue, sometimes blended with purple, to denote temperature of matter. There are also a couple streaks/blobs of pinkish-red
Located about 4.3 billion light-years from Earth, MACS J0416.1-2403 is a pair of colliding galaxy clusters that will eventually combine...
A black background is dotted with galaxies and a few foreground stars. Blobs of purple, blue, and reddish-purple denote temperature of matter.
At first glance, the scatter of pale dots on this Hubble Space Telescope image looks like a snowstorm in the...
Large sample galaxies of different sizes and shapes, experiencing a lens-like distortion.
This image shows the huge galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+223, whose light took over 5 billion years to reach us. The...
Large sample galaxies of different sizes and shapes, experiencing a lens-like distortion.
This long-exposure Hubble Space Telescope image of massive galaxy cluster Abell 2744 is the deepest ever made of any cluster...
Hundreds of galaxies in a diverse array of shapes and colors are scattered across the dark background of space.
The Hubble Space Telescope has photographed the dense galaxy cluster SDSS J1531+3414 in the northern constellation Corona Borealis. Made up...
Black background dotted with galaxies. Two reddish galaxies at image center as two dots next to each other, with a thin bluish-white ring curving almost completely around it. Directly below the two galaxies, the filaments appear as a squiggly blue line.
This is a Hubble image of the most massive cluster of galaxies ever seen to exist when the universe was...
A massive galaxy cluster full of galaxies of all shapes and sizes, which seem to be surrounded by a bright blue haze.
Abell 68, pictured here in infrared light, is a cluster of galaxies. Such clusters can distort and magnify the light...
Large sample galaxies of different sizes and shapes, experiencing a lens-like distortion.
In this Hubble Space Telescope observation, astronomers used the massive galaxy cluster MACS J0647+7015 as a giant cosmic telescope. The...
A packed field of galaxies and with faint curved arcs. Large grouping of galaxies warped around what appears to be a giant lens. Each galaxy appears as a glob of light, most of them reddish-orange. Bright blue-white foreground star at left and bottom right.
Thanks to the presence of a natural "zoom lens" in space, this Hubble image provides a close-up look at a...
Bright yellow-white galaxies against the black backdrop of space.. Faint streaks and arcs of gravitationally lensed background galaxies.
Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) took this unprecedented image of the cosmos. Hubble peered straight through the center of...
Bright yellow-white galaxies fill the field of view. A few foreground stars dot the scene in the upper half of the image. Faint arcs of gravitationally lensed background galaxies.
The jumble of galaxies in this Hubble Space Telescope image, taken in September 2003, includes a yellow spiral whose arms...
Black background dotted with galaxies. A reddish galaxy at image center with a bluish-white arc above it. Below it to the right it a yellowish swirling galaxy, and at the top center is a blue-white spiral galaxy. Other spiral and elliptical galaxies appear smaller throughout the image, as they are farther away.
The Hubble Space Telescope imaged this giant, cosmic magnifying glass, a massive cluster of galaxies called Abell 2218. The cluster...
Bright yellow-white galaxies fill the field of view. Faint streaks and arcs of gravitationally lensed background galaxies.
This image shows the galaxy cluster MACS J1206.2-0847. The cluster is so far away, it took the light from the...
Large sample galaxies of different sizes and shapes, mostly a yellow-orange color, experiencing a lens-like distortion.
This image shows something spectacular: a massive galaxy cluster that is warping the space around it. The cluster, whose heart...
A massive galaxy cluster full of galaxies of all shapes and sizes, which seem to be surrounded by a bluish haze coming from a bright glowing white center.
Galaxies abound in this spectacular Hubble image; spiral arms swirl in all colors and orientations, and fuzzy ellipticals can be...
A packed field of galaxies and with faint curved arcs. Large grouping of galaxies warped around what appears to be a giant lens. Each galaxy appears as a glob of light, most of them reddish-orange. Bright twinkling foreground stars are scattered throughout the image.
This image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the rich galaxy cluster Abell 1413, over 2 billion light-years from Earth....
A collection of galaxies glowing in a soft golden light. In the center is an elliptical galaxy that appears to be emanating a bar of golden light. Around it are scattered multiple smaller galaxies of varying sizes, shapes, and colors.
Galaxy clusters are some of the most massive structures that can be found in the universe — large groups of...
A field of galaxies and with faint curved arcs. Each galaxy appears as a glob of light, most of them reddish-orange. Bright, blue-white, twinkling foreground stars are scattered in a few places in the image.
At first glance, a bright blue crescent immediately jumps out of this Hubble Space Telescope image. Is it a bird?...
Black background dotted with galaxies. A reddish galaxy at image center with a bluish-white arc above it.
This Hubble Space Telescope composite image shows a ghostly "ring" of dark matter in the galaxy cluster ZwCl0024+1652. The ring-like...
A massive galaxy cluster full of galaxies of all shapes and sizes, which seem to be surrounded by a bluish haze throughout the image.
Gravity is so much a part of our daily lives that it is all too easy to forget its awesome...
Black background dotted with galaxies. A reddish-orange galaxy at image center with a bluish-white arc above it.
This Hubble Space Telescope image demonstrates the immense effects of gravity; more specifically, it shows the effects of gravitational lensing...
A field full of distant galaxies on a dark background. Most of them are red-orange spirals or spheres, but some are other colors and/or shapes. In the very center is a quartet of reddish elliptical galaxies, in two pairs of two dots close together. A blue-white, warped streak of light arcs around them on the right.