It seems Halloween is not over for the galaxy as NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured what looks like a smiling face, albeit creepy, in a cluster of new stars.
The image was captured from the telescope’s wide field on camera 3 Nov 2 and shows a patch of space filled with galaxies of all shapes, colours, and sizes, many of which belong to the galaxy cluster SDSS J0952+3434.
As NASA explains in its blog, amidst the twinkling lights, the telescope captured a formation of galaxies resembling a smiling face. Two yellow-hued blobs atop a sweeping arc of light.
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The arc-shaped galaxy is due to it being gravitationally lensed, which basically means its light passed near a massive object causing it to become distorted and stretched out of shape.
Stars are born within giant clouds of gas. These massive clouds, or stellar nurseries, grow unstable and begin to collapse under gravity, becoming the seeds that will grow into new stars.
By analyzing the luminosity, size and formation rate of different stellar nurseries, scientists hope to learn more about the processes that can lead to the formation of a newborn star. Studying nurseries within different galaxies will provide information about star formation at different points in time and space throughout the universe.
(With ANI inputs)