NASA press release

A few Israelies star in today's NASA news release. Check it out at NASA's European webpage for NASA/ESO Space Telescope or at the Space Telescope Science Institute websites.

The image below (click to enlarge, notice the credits!), shows a cluster of galaxies, which doubles as a gigantic natural telescope - a gravitational lens. The four white bright star-like objects you see by the center of the image are actually images of the same far away object, called a Quasar. The quasar's image is multiplied, because the light that comes from it is bent by the massive cluster. Something like what happens when light passes through a bottle of beer, a fish tank, or a kaleidoscope .

Also seen in this image (click here for one with markings on it) is a couple of newly found Supernovae. Here you can see some zoom-in images, on the areas of the Supernovae.

This research, both the lensing phenomenon seen in this image, and the study of the supernovae, is a part of my PhD work. If you're not afraid of big science words, you can check out the paper here :)