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Distant gravitational lens, Hubble image
Hubble Space Telescope image of a distant gravitational lens, known as J1000+0221. The glow at the centre is a normal galaxy which is precisely aligned with a much more distant, young, star-forming galaxy. The light from the more remote object is bent around the nearer object by the closer galaxy's strong gravitational pull, and forms an 'Einstein ring' of multiple images. The phenomenon is known as gravitational lensing. The idea that light could be bent by gravity was put forward by Einstein in his general theory of relativity.
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