Viewing galaxies through a magnifying glass

The images of distant galaxies are often distorted by the gravitational fields of both closer galaxies and clusters of galaxies which act like huge magnifying glasses.

These magnifiers allow us to study the distant objects with much greater resolution and sensitivity than would otherwise be possible. We are using these ‘gravitational’ lenses both to study the formation of galaxies during the first two billion years, and to make inferences about the basic properties of our universe.