‘Space Invaders’ on the attack in distant galactic cluster

If you're old enough to remember Space Invaders, the old video arcade game, with its relentless alien ships marching across the screen, dropping down, reversing direction and increasing speed until they were right on top of you, you might recognize something in this picture (hint, check the upper left quadrant):

[ Related: 'Space Invader' Galaxy Captured by Hubble Telescope (Photos) ]

See him trying to hide out behind the glare of that galaxy next to him? Here's a closeup:

The top picture is of Abell 68, a massive cluster of galaxies, which was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. The image is currently #65 on the list of 100 Hubble's Hidden Treasures.

The lower image isn't really of a space invader (of course), and it isn't even showing the real shape of the object.

What's being seen here is the effect of gravitational lensing. Just like curving glass can create a lens that can magnify images, curving the 'fabric' of space-time does the same thing. Immense objects create equally immense curvatures of space-time due to their gravity, and as light goes past these immense objects, that curvature warps the light and distorts the image for anyone viewing from the other side (like us).

[ More Geekquinox: Comet Pan-STARRS will grace northern skies this week ]

So, the 'space invader' is actually just a normal 'everyday' spiral galaxy, but the gravitational lensing effect is warping the light from it, causing it to take on a mirrored look (to our point of view).

Geek out with the latest in science and weather.
Follow @ygeekquinox on Twitter!