A cosmic lens

The left curve of the "circle" at the center of the image is galaxy LRG-3-817. The course of the photons emitted by LRG has been disturbed by the effects that the mass of the galaxy cluster in the center of the "circle" has in space-time. Hence, we see the galaxy extremely distorted and magnified. Gravitational lensing is one of the observations that prove the General Theory of Relativity.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Allam et al