Smiley Face in Space

In the centre of this image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, are two faint galaxies that seem to be smiling.

You can make out two orange eyes and a white button nose. In the case of this “happy face”, the two eyes are the galaxies SDSSCGB 8842.3 and SDSSCGB 8842.4 and the misleading smile lines are actually arcs caused by an effect known as strong gravitational lensing.

Massive structures in the Universe exert such a powerful gravitational pull that they can warp the spacetime around them and act as cosmic lenses which can magnify, distort and bend the light behind them. This phenomenon, crucial to many of Hubble’s discoveries, can be explained by Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

In this special case of gravitational lensing, a ring — known as an Einstein Ring — is produced from this bending of light, a consequence of the exact and symmetrical alignment of the source, lens and observer and resulting in the ring-like structure we see here.

Hubble-NASA-ESA continied

The above vs.....

a reply to: Granite

what do you think the massive structure is that is causing this lensing effect as they dont explain in article .could it be a massive ufo parked there because they know it would cause gravitational lensing and it is like the bat signal.

second thoughts dam that looks like a circular space station that has been chopped or maybe warped in processing .

a reply to: stuthealien

We dont know if its a very large object closer to those galaxies or a smaller one much closer to us

Very cool effect though, i think i have a new "yo mammo so fat" joke evolving in my mind now hehehe

originally posted by: stuthealien
what do you think the massive structure is that is causing this lensing effect as they dont explain in article .

A galaxy cluster containing the 'eyes.' The two eyes look, to me, like they're two massive galaxies.

a reply to: links234

That is certainly what the author of the quoted article thinks they are!



Incidentally, when the Hubble telescope takes an image containing one of these ----> .......

.... we will know the creator is trolling us!

a reply to: TrueBrit

Haha. Space troll.

I'm so pleased this has happened. It shows how humans are predisposed to making sense out of random pictures. This ads credence to the fact that the face on mars is just a rock outcrop that when looked at from a distance resembles a face but as one gets closer, the resemblance goes away.

Proof that God is one cheeky mother, innit?

a reply to: Farlander

Dude must have a sense of humour.

My face is proof enough in my estimation, let alone the one out there in space!