The NASA Hubble Space Telescope is a classic example of a lone worker who is not used to using help from his celestial objects. But for the extraction of a specific image he had to cooperate with an amazing cosmic phenomenon - gravitational lensing.
This effect is triggered when the gravitational effect of a massive object, like a cluster of galaxies in the center of a photo, is so enormous that it distorts the surrounding space, causing the light to move along bent lines. A massive object begins to function as a classic magnifying glass that bends and amplifies light moving from more distant galaxies. In a particular case, the cluster of galaxies SDSS J0915 + 3826 was used to study the process of the birth of stars in galaxies located at a distance of 11.5 billion years. These galaxies appeared at an early stage in the life of the universe, so for astronomers they look like a rare glimpse of the beginning of space. Despite the distance, the effects of lensing from SDSS J0915 + 3826 allowed us to determine the size, brightness level, star birth speed, and star populations of individual clusters in these galaxies. This is an incredibly important achievement!
