This Hubble picture exemplifies the fact that the universe is a vast stage for grand illusions. Albert Einstein realized this a century ago as he formulated his law of general relativity. Gravity, he said, warped space like stretching and twisting a rubber sheet. The consequences would be that images of distant objects would be magnified, brightened, and distorted into funhouse mirror views. This is because their light would be bent as it traveled across the invisible tapestry of space and occasionally passed through gravitational "potholes" formed by massing objects that got in the way of the light path to Earth. However, Einstein knew that seeing such illusions would require much more powerful future telescopes. Little might he have imagined Hubble's treasure trove!

Hubble was used to take a look at one of the most stunning manifestations of a so-called Einstein ring: a donut-like loop of light that is as eerie as it is striking. The object seen here is cataloged as GAL-CLUS-022058s. It is located in the southern hemisphere constellation of Fornax (the Furnace). The image was nicknamed the "Molten Ring."

The lensing effect, caused the gravity of an intervening foreground object, creates multiple images of the contents of the more distant galaxy, that are magnified and smeared into an arc. The galaxy is so far away, we see it as it looked over 9 billion years ago, when the universe was less than half its present age. This was a time when the universe was going through a "baby boom," forming thousands of stars at a prolific rate. The magnified image of the galaxy gives astronomers a close-up glimpse into the distant past.

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