Peering into deep space, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has helped astronomers find places to study gravitational lensing, an effect in which massive objects such as galaxies warp space-time itself, bending and distorting the light of even more distant galaxies behind them. Each distorted arc, ring or multiplied galaxy image acts as a natural cosmic magnifying glass, offering astronomers a powerful tool to look further back into the universe's history.

What is it?

These eight images were drawn from the COSMOS-Web program, designed to study galaxy formation across cosmic time. One of the program's goals is to uncover gravitational lenses, and researchers launched the COSMOS-WEB Lens Survey (COWLS) to do just that.

By inspecting over 42,000 lensing candidates by eye, the researchers id

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