What you see here is actually a galaxy and a quasar, one behind the other, in direct line of sight from our vantage point here on earth. The Galaxy Huchra’s Lens in the foreground is creating a gravitational lensing effect that is bending the light and creating a sort of ‘space mirage’. Though it was first postulated by Einstein with the General Theory of Relativity, there was no observational proof until Hubble found what we now call Einstein’s Cross pictured above. This effect is caused by the gravity from the closer galaxy (400 million light years from Earth) bending the light emitted by quasar (8 billion light years from Earth) behind it resulting in four mirrored images.
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