A Gravitational Lens Shows the Same Galaxy Three Times

This star- and galaxy-studded image was captured by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The galaxy visible in the bottom right corner of the image, named SGAS 0033+02 is a triple gravitational lens. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, E. Wuyts.

Images from the Hubble Space Telescope are often mind-bending in both their beauty and wealth of scientific wonder. And sometimes, Hubble captures light-bending images too.

Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) snapped a photo of a galaxy where the light has been bent by gravitational lensing, so that the galaxy show up not just once, but three times. But the multiple views aren’t exact replicas of each other — they appear as different shapes.

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