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Hubble gravitational lens image shows a galaxy magnified twice as NASA prepares Roman

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NASA has released a new Hubble gravitational lens image in which a distant galaxy is magnified and bent by the gravity of a closer one, the agency said on 22 October 2026. It is one of many lensing images Hubble is collecting to prepare for science with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

Hubble gravitational lens: A barred spiral galaxy beside a gravitational lens with blue arcs of a magnified background galaxy
A barred spiral galaxy beside a gravitational lens with blue arcs of a magnified background galaxy Photo: NASA, ESA, X. Huang (University of San Francisco); processing: Gladys Kober (public domain).

What the Hubble gravitational lens shows

The image is dominated by a sweeping barred spiral galaxy, but NASA says the real treasure sits in the lower-right corner. There, a reddish elliptical foreground galaxy about 4.5 billion light-years away acts as a lens. Light from it began travelling toward us when our solar system was still forming. The background galaxy is about eight billion light-years away, almost twice as far. It appears twice: as a large, noticeable arc to the upper left of the foreground galaxy and as a much smaller, flipped image to the lower right. Astronomers call this an arc-counterarc pair. Lenses like this happen only when a precise chance alignment lines up the two galaxies, so light from the farther one curves around the nearer one.

Key Facts

  • Foreground (lens) galaxy: about 4.5 billion light-years away
  • Background galaxy: about 8 billion light-years away
  • Shape: an arc-counterarc pair
  • Purpose: groundwork for NASA’s Roman telescope
  • Released: 22 October 2026

Weighing dark matter

Gravitational lensing occurs when the mass of a foreground object warps spacetime, causing light to bend, distort and magnify, much like a giant lens in space. The more massive the foreground galaxy, the stronger the lens. By studying the distortion of the background galaxy, researchers can work out how much mass the foreground galaxy holds. NASA says visible matter alone is not enough to explain the level of distortion, which lets scientists calculate how much dark matter the galaxy contains. Dark matter is the invisible substance that makes up most of the mass in the universe. Almost every object in the frame is a galaxy, apart from a few foreground stars, and a tiny spiral beside the big one may be a satellite galaxy, similar to the Magellanic Clouds that orbit the Milky Way.

How Hubble and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will work together

Hubble sees mainly visible and ultraviolet light with some infrared, while Roman sees mostly infrared and some visible light. Hubble gives sharp views of single objects; Roman has a much wider field of view suited to panoramas. Hubble can study these lenses only one at a time, while Roman’s wide view will capture a far larger sample, NASA said. Astronomers are using Hubble’s sharp images to build a computer model that analyses dark matter distortions, a tool that will help them handle Roman’s large images. Hubble will also follow up on interesting lenses that Roman finds. The image was taken by NASA, ESA and X. Huang of the University of San Francisco, and processed by Gladys Kober.

Why It Matters: Lensing is one of the few ways to measure dark matter directly, and pairing Hubble's detail with Roman's wide surveys could greatly increase the number of lenses scientists can study.

Also on TrendDesh: CASALS lidar: NASA instrument maps Earth in continuous 3D swaths instead of thin lines · JPL 90 years: NASA lab marks anniversary with SkyFall, MoonFall and NISAR on its slate

Source: NASA Science, 22 Oct 2026 · NASA: Hubble mission · NASA: Roman Space Telescope

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