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Quasars' Multiple Images Shed Light on Tiny Dark Matter Clumps
From the collection of NASA Image and Video Library. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Each of these Hubble Space Telescope snapshots reveals four distorted images of a background quasar (an extremely bright region in the center of some distant galaxies) and its host galaxy surrounding the core of a foreground massive galaxy. The gravity of the massive foreground galaxy acts like a magnifying glass by warping the quasar's light in an effect called gravitational lensing. Quasars are extremely distant cosmic "streetlights" produced by active black holes.
NASA Image and Video Library’s own descriptionSubjects
Credit lineQuasars' Multiple Images Shed Light on Tiny Dark Matter Clumps. NASA/JPL, 2020-01-08. Public domain. ID: PIA23410.
