This image acquired with the Hubble Space Telescope is packed full of hundreds of galaxies! Prominently displayed near the center is an “Einstein Ring”, the distorted images of distant galaxies, images distorted by the colossal mass of the foreground galaxy cluster SDSS J0146-0929. Image credit: NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope
In Albert Einstein‘s 1915 General Theory of Relativity, his theory on Gravity and a brand new way of looking at the universe, it was predicted that the space in the vicinity of a massive object would be warped and thus, the appearance of anything whose light would pass through this region of space would be distorted. In this image from the Hubble Space Telescope, another of Einstein’s predictions was confirmed!
In this image of the galaxy cluster SDSS J0146-0929 acquired with the Hubble Space Telescope, hundreds of distant galaxies can be seen, some giant ellipticals, some beautiful spirals, some edge-on, others face-on and others of various shapes.
In this monstrous collection of galaxies, all shackled together by the unyielding grip of gravity, the space near the center of the image is warped by the combined mass of the galaxies, mass in excess of hundreds of trillions of solar masses. This warping of space creates the odd, arc-shaped images of galaxies more distant than the foreground cluster.
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