Galaxy cluster Abell S1077, as seen by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
The cluster acts as a magnifying glass, its gravity high enough to warp even the fabric of space-time. This effect distorts the path that light from distant galaxies takes when it travels through the cluster, as can be seen here in the bright arcs smeared around the centre of Abell S1077.
The phenomenon of gravitational lensing allows astronomers to see objects that are aligned behind the cluster and that would otherwise be undetectable from Earth.
This image is based in part on data spotted by Nick Rose in the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition.