Imagine if you will.. a vista of galaxies as observed some 2.5-billion years ago. OK now look at this image. Same thing! This composite image is from both visible image data from the Hubble Space Telescope as well as Xray data (in purple) from the Chandra Xray Telescope.
The light has been traveling towards us for nearly half the age of the Earth and about a quarter of the estimated age of the Universe! There’s a peculiar and interesting addition to this story, if 2.5-billion year old galaxies aren’t peculiar and interesting enough. If you look closely, you can see the subtle, but visible, arcs of light around the center of the cluster.
These are not some weird blips in the image. They are, in fact, far distant galaxies! The light from the background distant galaxies, is being bent AROUND the massive well of gravity created by the galaxy cluster, called Abell 1689, located in the foreground! This cluster seems to be merging into itself, the resulting heat concentration is seen by Xray data in purple at the center of the image. The gravity well from Abell 1689 is in fact, warping the light from behind it, around itself. Allowing us to see galaxies further away in both time and space!
This phenomenon known as, gravitational lensing, was predicted by Albert Einstein and has been confirmed in many various ways since! Einstein also proposed the an astronomical satellite, placed at the correct position, could use our own Sun as a ‘lens’ and observe far distant objects that the instrument could on it’s own! Check out further details at the Chandra mission site!
A massive cluster of galaxies 2.3 billion light years away in the constellation Virgo! The arcs in this image of Abell 1689 are caused by gravity distorting the light of background galaxies — a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing! https://t.co/DTfSuXLuYC pic.twitter.com/SPGaxPiweu
— Chandra Observatory (@chandraxray) October 9, 2018
