Searching for newborn stars, the high-powered telescope spots a very happy-looking galaxy.
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| © CNET The Hubble Telescope finally proves that when we stare at space, sometimes the galaxy smiles back. |
By Bonnie Burton, CNET
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered everything from a cosmic bat shadow to a skull and crossbones nebula. So among all the spooky images, it's nice to spot a friendly face.
This image posted to NASA's site Friday shows a formation of galaxies that look a lot like a smiling face. Look closely and you'll see two yellow orbs above an arc of light.
"The
lower, arc-shaped galaxy has the characteristic shape of a galaxy that
has been gravitationally lensed -- its light has passed near a massive
object en route to us, causing it to become distorted and stretched out
of shape," NASA says.
The smiley face is located in the galaxy cluster SDSS J0952+3434, and was shot with the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3),
This
image was spotted as part of Hubble mission to better understand how
new stars are born. The high-powered WFC3 camera has such amazing
resolution that it can locate regions of star formations so NASA
scientists can better study them.
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