Hubble Discovers 67 New Gravitational Lenses

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have compiled a large catalog of gravitational lenses in the distant Universe. The catalog contains a staggering 67 new gravitationally lensed images found around massive elliptical and lenticular-shaped galaxies. This sample demonstrates the rich diversity of strong gravitational lenses. If this sample is representative, there would be nearly half a million similar gravitational lenses in total over the whole sky.
What is a gravitational lens? A gravitational lens is formed when the light from a very distant, bright source (such as a quasar) is "bent" around a massive object (such as a cluster of galaxies) between the source object and the observer. This is known as gravitational lensing, and is one of the predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.

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