Hubble Telescope spots a gigantic ‘smile’ in deep space

The Hubble Telescope captured an image of an enormous galaxy cluster which appears to be smiling at its galactic neighbors.  

SpaceTelescope.org elaborates:

“In the case of this ‘happy face’, the two eyes are very bright galaxies and the misleading smile lines are actually arcs caused by an effect known as strong gravitational lensing.

Galaxy clusters are the most massive structures in the Universe and exert such a powerful gravitational pull that they warp the spacetime around them and act as cosmic lenses which can magnify, distort and bend the light behind them.”

Artist Judy Schmidt discovered the cheery phenomena while skimming through Hubble’s science archives and entered the image into “Hubble’s Hidden Treasures” contest. NASA released the image Monday.