Galactic Reconstruction (IMAGE)

University of Chicago

Galactic Reconstruction

Caption

This graphic shows a reconstruction (at lower left) of the brightest galaxy, whose image has been distorted by the gravity of a distant galaxy cluster. The small rectangle in the center shows the location of the background galaxy on the sky if the intervening galaxy cluster were not there. The rounded outlines show distinct, distorted images of the background galaxy resulting from lensing by the mass in the cluster. The image at lower left is a reconstruction of what the lensed galaxy would look like in the absence of the cluster, based on a model of the cluster's mass distribution derived from studying the distorted galaxy images.

Credit

Courtesy of NASA; ESA; J. Rigby (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center); K. Sharon (Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics); and and M. Gladders and E. Wuyts (University of Chicago)

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