{"id":302,"date":"2026-03-29T20:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T17:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/physicomics.com\/astrophysicomics\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T20:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T17:17:12","slug":"astrophysicomics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/physicomics.com\/en\/astrophysicomics\/","title":{"rendered":"Astrophysicomics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cosmos is smiling\u2026 literally!<\/h2>\n

Hubble has spotted this smiling face in space.<\/p>\n

\"Astrophysicomics\"<\/p>\n

In the center of the image, taken by the NASA\/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the galaxy cluster SDSS J1038+4849\u2014and it appears to be smiling.<\/p>\n

Images from space have captured many smiles from the surrounding galaxies, but it\u2019s quite rare for one of them to smile back at us.<\/p>\n

This adorable image\u2014in which the galaxy cluster SDSS J1038+4849 appears to be smiling at the camera\u2014is courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n

Our tendency to see faces in inanimate objects is due to a neurological phenomenon called pareidolia. The cause isn\u2019t entirely clear, but it\u2019s likely an evolutionary quirk: Humans have evolved to be really good at recognizing other people\u2019s faces, even when they\u2019re strangers or the lighting isn\u2019t great. The reason could be that our brains get a little ahead of themselves and find pseudo-features that we know don\u2019t exist, leading us to have the unsettling yet amusing sensation that our receptors are open.<\/p>\n

In this case, the cosmic \u201cface\u201d is caused by a well-ordered galactic phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Large clusters of galaxies sometimes produce such a strong gravitational pull that it warps time and space around them. This can be significant for scientists on Earth because the warping can act as a natural \u201clens\u201d and magnify distant objects behind the clusters, making them more visible to space telescopes. However, we must not forget that magnification distorts objects.<\/p>\n

The ring that forms the \u201cface\u201d is called an Einstein Ring, and it is produced by a very specific view of such a distorted galaxy cluster. Another feature of the distortion is an asymmetrical smile.<\/p>\n

Inside the ring, two bright galaxies are perfectly positioned as eyes, completing the illusion.<\/p>\n

Source: Washington Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cosmos is smiling\u2026 literally! Hubble has spotted this smiling face in space. In the center of the image, taken by […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/physicomics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/physicomics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/physicomics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/physicomics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/physicomics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/physicomics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/physicomics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/physicomics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/physicomics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/physicomics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}