NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the galaxy cluster CL1358+62 has
uncovered a gravitationally-lensed image of a more distant galaxy located far
beyond the cluster. The gravitationally-lensed image appears as a red crescent
to the lower right of center. The galaxy's image is brightened, magnified, and
smeared into an arc-shape by the gravitational influence of the intervening
galaxy cluster, which acts like a gigantic lens.
Exact measurement of the distance from spectroscopic observations with the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii show the lensed galaxy is the farthest ever seen. Its light is only reaching us now from a time when the universe was but 7% its current age of approximately 14 billion years. This places the young galaxy as far as 13 billion light-years away. The lensing foreground cluster is 5 billion light-years from us.
Credits: Marijn Franx (University of Groningen, The Netherlands),
Garth Illingworth (University of California, Santa
Cruz), and NASA
July 30, 1997
Photo No.: STScI-PRC97-25