Galactic Banana Republic

At the National Astronomy Meeting in Cardiff, researchers unveiled an astonishing image of the universe – with each galaxy distorted to resemble an elongated banana! The images from the Hubble telescope revealed that the warps were produced thousands of miles away as the light passed through a natural distorting lens in space. This effect was first predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, published in 1916. In this case the existence of galaxy clusters in the foreground were responsible for this distortion. According to scientists, we see these distant galaxies as they once were, when the universe was a quarter of its present age. When we correct the distorting effects of the lens, the internal structures are meant to provide us with new archaeological insights into the youth of these galaxies and how our own Milky Way was formed! Exciting times for Maths and Physics applicants.