Abell S1063

In the center of the image is the immense galaxy cluster Abell S1063, located 4 billion light-years away and surrounded by magnified images of galaxies much farther. The Hubble Space Telescope photo unveils the effect of space warping caused by gravity. The huge mass of the cluster distorts and magnifies the light from galaxies that lie far behind it due to an effect called gravitational lensing. This phenomenon allows Hubble to see galaxies that would otherwise be too small and faint to observe. This "warp field" makes it possible to get a peek at the very first generation of galaxies. One of the magnified galaxies in this field is seen as it looked 1 billion years after the Big Bang. The cluster contains approximately 100 million-million solar masses. It also contains 51 confirmed galaxies and perhaps over 400 more.