Astronomers are astounded by a rare cosmic alignment showcasing highly magnified star-forming regions in distant galaxies.
What, why, how? The cosmos is full of questions. Still, astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope were surprised to find a distant, red galaxy distorted into the shape of a question mark. A specific, rarely-seen type of natural gravitational lens is causing the galaxy to appear multiple times. The lensing also magnifies the galaxy and its spiral companion, allowing astronomers to pinpoint specific regions of star formation, using a combination of infrared data from Webb and ultraviolet data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
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