More like, ‘Proof That The Cheshire Cat Is Real’.

A new photo taken by Chandra, the NASA space telescope, shows us a group of galaxies aptly named the ‘Cheshire Cat’. And, just like the mysterious feline from Alice in Wonderland, the oddly smiling cosmic face has more to it than meets the eye.

Astronomers think the Cheshire Cat group will become what is known as a fossil group, defined as a gathering of galaxies that contains one giant elliptical galaxy and other much smaller, fainter ones. Fossil groups may represent a temporary stage that nearly all galaxy groups pass through at some point in their evolution.

The photo also works to put part of Einstein’s theory of general relativity on display – that’s where the smile and formation of the face comes from. But I’m going to leave it up to the experts to explain, just in case I miss something valid in my interpretation. Go ahead, NASA:

Einstein theorized that matter actually “warps” the fabric of space-time, causing light to bend around extremely massive objects. This bending of light can allow scientists to observe very distant objects more easily through a process called gravitational lensing.

For example, the light from a distant galaxy might encounter a huge cluster of galaxies on its way to Earth. When the light from the faraway galaxy comes upon that cluster, the mass of the group of the galaxies causes the light of the more distant object to bend around it, effectively magnifying and distorting the light of the far galaxy from Earth’s perspective.

This bending of light happens because massive objects like planets, black holes, galaxies and other bodies can warp space-time’s fabric like a bowling ball dimpling a sheet on a mattress.

In the case of the Cheshire Cat galaxies, some of the distant galaxies are being gravitationally lensed by the mass within two groups of galaxies that make up the cat’s eyes and nose.

The multiple arcs of the circular ‘face’ arise from gravitational lensing of four different background galaxies well behind the ‘eye’ galaxies.

Got it? Great. Now all we need is Cheshire Cat emoji and we’ll be able to speak in Universe.

[source: mashable]