HARROW: Humans have been fascinated with space for centuries. Astrology, constellations and theories about alien existence have arisen in a variety of cultures across the world. This is probably why the internets are going cray-cray for a big scary ‘smiley’ face from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
NASA has this week released an image from the Hubble Telescope which looks eerily like a face – and that’s taking into account pareidolia, the phenomenon in every human brain which makes us feel we are seeing faces in everyday objects.
The face, which appears to be smiling, is a combination of particularly large galaxies and the effect of ‘galaxy clusters’.
“Galaxy clusters are the most massive structures in the universe and exert such a powerful gravitational pull that they warp the spacetime around them and act as cosmic lenses which can magnify, distort and bend the light behind them.”
