Cosmic House of Mirrors

Galaxies warp and multiply as if in a house of mirrors in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope released on Sept. 29, 2026.

The brilliant golden galaxies seen here are part of a galaxy cluster called MACS J0454.1-0300. The orange galaxies bunched together on one side of the image, however, are not actually part of the cluster, but rather galaxies much farther away whose light has been bent and magnified by gravitational lensing. This phenomenon occurs when the enormous mass of a foreground object such as a galaxy cluster bends and magnifies the light from a more distant object in the background.

Learn more about this galaxy cluster.

Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Furtak, S. Fujimoto