Hubble image archive
Hubble Sees Giant Lensed Galaxy Arc
Thanks to the presence of a natural "zoom lens" in space, this is a close-up look at the brightest distant "magnified" galaxy in the universe known to date. It is one of the most striking examples of gravitational lensing, where the gravitational field of a foreground galaxy bend...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2012
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2012-08-2977-image
Thanks to the presence of a natural "zoom lens" in space, this is a close-up look at the brightest distant "magnified" galaxy in the universe known to date. It is one of the most striking examples of gravitational lensing, where the gravitational field of a foreground galaxy bends and amplifies the light of a more distant background galaxy. In this image the light from a distant galaxy, nearly 10 billion light-years away, has been warped into a nearly 90-degree arc of light in the galaxy cluster RCS2 032727-132623. The galaxy cluster lies 5 billion light-years away. The background galaxy's image is over three times brighter than typically lensed galaxies. The natural-color image was taken in March 2011 with the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3.
Credits
NASA, ESA, J. Rigby (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), K. Sharon (Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago), and M. Gladders and E. Wuyts (University of Chicago)Image Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | RCS2 032727-132623, RCSGA 032727-132609 |
| Object Description | Galaxy Cluster and Gravitational Lens System |
| R.A. Position | 03h 27m 27.09s |
| Dec. Position | -13° 26' 22.8" |
| Constellation | Eridanus |
| Distance | z = 1.701 (background galaxy RCSGA 032727-132609) and z = 0.564 (foreground galaxy cluster RCS2 032727-132623) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The image was created from Hubble data from proposal : J. Rigby (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) et al. |
| Instrument | HST>WFC3/UVIS and HST>WFC3/IR |
| Exposure Dates | March 1, 2011, Exposure Time: 2.7 hours |
| Filters | WFC3/UVIS: F390W (U), F606W (V), and F814W (I) WFC3/IR: F098M (blue grism), F125W (J), F132N (Paschen β), and F160W (H) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by the WFC3 instrument on HST. Several filters were used to sample broad wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F390W (U) + F606W (V) Green: F814W (I) Red: F098M (blue grism) + F125W (J) + F132N (Paschen β) + F160W (H) |
More Images From This Period
Downloads
Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov