Deep Field Galaxy Cluster

Deepfield Galaxy Cluster Publisher's Note:Available also in the Full Frame, uncropped, raw unprocessed Hubble format. The default is Standard Landscape, which is a slightly cropped image with some background noise eliminated to improve picture quality. A massive cluster of yellowish galaxies, seemingly caught in a red and blue spider web of eerily distorted background galaxies, makes for a spellbinding picture from the new Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Two billion light-years away, galaxy cluster Abell 1689 is one of the most massive objects in the Universe.In this view from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys, Abell 1689 is seen to warp space as predicted by Einstein's theory of gravity -- bending light from individual galaxies which lie behind the cluster to produce multiple, curved images. Credit: NASA, N. Benitez (JHU), T. Broadhurst (Racah Institute of Physics/The Hebrew University), H. Ford (JHU), M. Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick Observatory), the ACS Science Team and ESA