Say cheese! Hubble Telescope Spots Smiley Face in Space

[Num7]

That really makes you wonder what we're actually looking at when watching the sky. Is this some sort of Easter Egg in space, or glitch in the sky that we were somehow not supposed to spot?

Look! Up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's an emoticon?

It sure looks like a smiley face beaming down from the heavens, but actually it's a massive galaxy cluster known as SDSS J1038+4849.

The image, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, looks like two glowing yellow eyes and several curved lines forming a face and a smile.

For more than 20 years, the Hubble Space Telecope has circled quietly above us, capturing a dark, secret world billions of light years away.

Thousands of those stunning photos are available in the Hubble database. This particular one was spotted Judy Schmidt and sent to the Hubble's Hidden Treasures competition.

The two glowing eyes are actually two distant galaxies. And the smile? That's a result of what astronomists call "strong gravitational lensing."

That happens because the gravitational pull between the two galaxy cluster is so strong it distorts time and space around them.

The "ring like structure" forming the smiley face is known as an "Einstein Ring" -- named after the man whose theory of general relativity explains even mysteries as great as a space emoticon.

Source + more photos:
Say cheese! Hubble Telescope spots smiley face in space - CNN.com

 

[PoisonApple]

Cheese!

 

[Harte]

The pic shows several examples of gravitational lensing, a phenomenon the (now ignored) member Einstein says doesn't exist.

He claims they are flaws in the camera lenses.

Harte

 

[Einstein]

The pic shows several examples of gravitational lensing, a phenomenon the (now ignored) member Einstein says doesn't exist.

He claims they are flaws in the camera lenses.

Harte

This wasn't my theory. And I never said gravitational lensing was due to flaws in camera lenses. But I might have said that I didn't think you were a Physics teacher. In light of the fact that you have also stated you were an English teacher as well. Perhaps you are just a substitute teacher.