IC 348 Crop: Gravitational lensing

This image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope shows an example of gravitational lensing hidden in the background of the star-forming region IC 348.

The round blue dot in the centre of the image is a distant galaxy. The orange line which arcs around it on one side, and the small orange loop touching its centre, are both images of another, even more distant galaxy behind it. Because this orange galaxy lines up just right behind the blue galaxy, the blue galaxy acts like a lens: its gravity bends the path of the light emitted by the orange galaxy, creating these warped images.

You can view the full image from which this crop was taken here.

[Image description: A close-up of a galaxy among the greenish gas clouds of IC 348. The galaxy appears like a round blue dot. An orange line bends around the bottom-right of the dot, appearing to warp to avoid touching it; a second, smaller orange line forms a loop touching the core of the galaxy. These two lines are images of the same distant background galaxy, made by gravitational lensing.]