Hubble telescope clicks galaxy forming its own mirror image in space

James Webb Space Telescope may be (rightfully) hogging all the limelight right now, but its predecessor, Hubble Space Telescope is still dutifully capturing fascinating images of the cosmos after all these years. The telescope has been humanity’s major scope in the space and will gradually make way for JWST.
The new image taken by the Hubble telescope is unique because it captures a fascinating phenomenon in the cosmos. This photo shows mirror images of the galaxy in the centre. This phenomenon is called ‘gravitational lensing’. Check out the image posted by European Space Agency.

“This NASA/ESA @HUBBLE_space Telescope image shows a gravitationally lensed galaxy with the name SGAS J143845+145407 😮 Gravitational lensing has caused a mirror image of the galaxy at the centre of this picture, creating a captivating centrepiece,” says ESA in its tweet while sharingthe image.

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What is gravitational lensing?

A large celestial body having huge amount of mass, a galaxy for example, has an effect on the spacetime fabric around it. The massive gravity ‘bends’ the fabric of the space. This is called gravitational lensing. Due to this bending, some rays of light emanating from the same object cause the lensing (or an object placed behind the object causing the lensing) travel along the bent space-time fabric. This forms a mirror image of, either the same object or the object behind it.
In this case, the mirror-image is of the same galaxy.
Another feature of such a lensing is that it magnifies the image of the object. This makes iteasier for us to study the celestial body in detail.

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