Hubble Spots Rare Gravitational Arc from Distant, Hefty Galaxy Cluster (light, theory)

[Brian.Pearson]

Seeing is believing, except when you don't believe what you see.


Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found a puzzling arc of light behind an extremely massive cluster of galaxies residing 10 billion light-years away. The galactic grouping, discovered by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, was observed when the universe was roughly a quarter of its current age of 13.7 billion years. The giant arc is the stretched shape of a more distant galaxy whose light is distorted by the monster cluster's powerful gravity, an effect called gravitational lensing.
The trouble is, the arc shouldn't exist.

[etacarinae]

Barring rampant speculation , there are likely additional clusters and galaxies whose view are obstructed by the cluster. It is a tad strange , given current estimates of a 13.7Gyr age of the observable universe. On a tangent , this discovery , in concert with the recent ripples in spacetime observed in the WMAP image(observing instrument may be in error) , this alludes toward the theory that the universe was the result of quantum fluctuations.

[Brian.Pearson]

Originally Posted by etacarinae

Barring rampant speculation , there are likely additional clusters and galaxies whose view are obstructed by the cluster. It is a tad strange , given current estimates of a 13.7Gyr age of the observable universe. On a tangent , this discovery , in concert with the recent ripples in spacetime observed in the WMAP image(observing instrument may be in error) , this alludes toward the theory that the universe was the result of quantum fluctuations.

I understand they'll use the Hubble telescope, again, for another look.