Question Mark Galaxy, annotated (NIRCam Compass Image)

A specific type of gravitational lensing known to astronomers as hyperbolic umbilic, captured in the James Webb Space Telescope’s image of galaxy cluster MACS-J0417.5, results in the optical illusion of five multiples of one distant galaxy pair, labelled here as A, B, C, D, and E. While the pair exists once in reality, it appears five times when viewed through the funhouse mirror of warped space created by the mass of the cluster. Image D is largely obscured behind the bright white glare of one of the cluster galaxies.

This image also includes compass arrows, scale bar, and colour key for reference. The scale bar is labelled in arcseconds, which is a measure of angular distance on the sky. There are 60 arcminutes in a degree and 60 arcseconds in an arcminute. (The full Moon has an angular diameter of about 30 arcminutes.) The actual size of an object that covers one arcsecond on the sky depends on its distance from the telescope.

This image shows infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colours. The colour key at the bottom of the image shows which filters from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument were used. The colour of each filter name is the visible light colour assigned to represent the infrared light detected by that filter.

Credit: