Satellite pictures show space emoji looking down on us
Picture is actually two huge galaxies, and arcs made by gravitational lensing
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Space is often seen as an uncaring, cold void. And while that’s probably true, at least it’s smiling at us.
New photos of the galaxy cluster SDSS J1038+4849 show what looks like a huge, celestial emoji staring down at the picture.
The two eyes that can be seen are actually very bright galaxies. And the smile lines and side of the face are actually arcs cause by an effect known as strong gravitational lensing.
Galaxy clusters are the most massive structures in the universe. They have such a strong gravitational pull that they can warp spacetime around them — which means that they can work as “cosmic lenses”, distorting the light around them and causing the arcs seen in the photo.
The specific kind of arc seen in the photo is known as an Einstein Ring, and comes about when the source, lens and observer are all exactly aligned.
It was spotted by amateur astronomer Judy Schmidt, who submitted the image to the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures competition, which rewards people for spotting interesting things in the space telescope’s data.
Hubble was launched in 1990 and has made more than a million observations since. Many of the most spectacular pictures — including the famous ‘pillars of creation’ picture, among other similarly grand images — are collected at the Hubble website.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments