Hubble captures a 'quintuple' quasar

This animation shows galaxy cluster SDSS J1004+4112 with three rare phenomena marked. The blue circles show a unique five time gravitationally lensed quasar. This image is the first-ever picture of such an object. A gravitational lens will always produce an odd number of lensed images, but one image is usually very weak and embedded deep within the light of the lensing object itself. Hubble’s sharp vision and the high magnification of this gravitational lens combine to place the fifth image far enough from the core of the central imaging galaxy to make it visible.

The red circles indicate three remarkably different images of the same background galaxy. The galaxy is 12 thousand million light years away (a redshift of 3.33, corresponding to only 1.8 thousand million years after the Big Bang).

The yellow circle marks a supernova that was found by comparing this image to a picture of the cluster obtained with Hubble a year earlier. This supernova exploded seven thousand million years ago in one of the cluster galaxies. This image, together with other supernova observations, is being used to understand how the Universe was enriched by heavy elements through these explosions.