Galaxy Cluster Lenses Farthest Known Galaxy
			
		
		
		
			Gravity can bend light, allowing whole clusters of galaxies 
to act as huge telescopes. 
Almost all of the bright objects in this just-released 
Hubble Space Telescope image are galaxies in the 
cluster known as 
Abell 2218. 
The cluster is so massive and so compact that its 
gravity bends and focuses the light 
from galaxies that lie behind it. 
As a result, 
multiple images of these background 
galaxies are distorted into long faint arcs - 
a simple lensing effect analogous to viewing distant street
lamps through a glass of 
wine. 
The cluster of galaxies 
Abell 2218 is itself about two billion 
light-years away in the northern constellation 
Draco.
The power of this massive cluster telescope has 
recently allowed astronomers to detect a galaxy at a
redshift of about 7, the 
most distant galaxy or quasar 
yet measured.  
Three images of this young, still-maturing galaxy are 
faintly visible in the white contours near the image 
top and the lower right. 
The recorded light, further analyzed with a 
Keck Telescope, left this galaxy 
when the universe was only about five percent of its 
current age.