Thousands of far-flung galaxies revealed

Astronomers have captured a spectacular image of a massive galaxy cluster embedded among nearly thousands of previously unseen galaxies scattered across space and time. The image of the Abell 370 galaxy cluster and its surroundings was made as part of the Durham University-led Beyond Ultra-deep Frontier Fields And Legacy Observations (BUFFALO) survey. BUFFALO, led jointly by Durham and the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark , is a new survey of the NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope aimed at expanding its view of largely uncharted regions of the Universe. Several hundred galaxies can be seen in Abell 370, located about 4 billion light years from Earth, which lies at the centre of the new image. Thousands more previously unseen distant galaxies lying behind Abell 370 are also revealed in the image through an effect called gravitational lensing. Galaxy clusters The immense mass of galaxy clusters like Abell 370, mainly composed of the mysterious dark matter, bends and magnifies the light of these faraway objects, turning these clusters into natural telescopes. This gravitational lensing effect allows scientists to see further into space beyond the cluster, by capturing the light emitted by very distant and faint objects.