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Cosmic House of Mirrors

Galaxies warp and multiply as if in a house of mirrors in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope released on Sept. 29, 2026. The brilliant golden galaxies seen here are part of a galaxy cluster called MACS J0454.1-0300.…

By · October 9, 2026 · 1 min read
This article was originally published by NASA Breaking News and is republished here under license.
A massive galaxy cluster, made of many golden elliptical galaxies with the largest, brightest one in the center. Heavily distorted orange galaxies appear all around the cluster, the largest concentrated in a large arc around the cluster's center; these are images of very distant galaxies, created by gravitational lensing. A few galaxies are large and bluish-white in color; bright, nearby stars are the same color.
ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Furtak, S. Fujimoto

Galaxies warp and multiply as if in a house of mirrors in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope released on Sept. 29, 2026.

The brilliant golden galaxies seen here are part of a galaxy cluster called MACS J0454.1-0300. The orange galaxies bunched together on one side of the image, however, are not actually part of the cluster, but rather galaxies much farther away whose light has been bent and magnified by gravitational lensing. This phenomenon occurs when the enormous mass of a foreground object such as a galaxy cluster bends and magnifies the light from a more distant object in the background.

Learn more about this galaxy cluster.

Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Furtak, S. Fujimoto

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