Contact: Lars Lindberg Christensen
lars@eso.org
49--893-200-6306
ESA/Hubble Information Centre

Hubble Captures a 'Five-star' Rated Gravitational Lens

Caption: This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is the first-ever picture of a distant quasar lensed into five images. The group of five quasar images produced in a process called gravitational lensing, in which the gravitational field of a massive object - in this case, a cluster of galaxies - bends and amplifies light from an object - in this case, a quasar � farther behind it.

Credit: European Space Agency, NASA, Keren Sharon (Tel-Aviv University) and Eran Ofek (CalTech)

Usage Restrictions: None

Related news release: Hubble captures a 'five-star' rated gravitational lens