This analysis provides a direct glimpse of how star-forming regions are distributed in remote galaxies and yields other clues to the early evolution of galaxies. The picture is dominated by spiral and elliptical galaxies. Resembling a string of tree lights, the biggest and brightest galaxies are members of the foreground cluster. Researchers are intrigued by a tiny red dot just left of top center. This dot may be an extremely remote object made visible by the cluster's magnifying powers.
Further investigation is needed to confirm the object's identity.
The Hubble telescope first viewed this cluster in 1994, producing one of the most spectacular demonstrations of gravitational lensing up to that time. Hubble's latest multicolor image of the cluster will allow astronomers to probe in greater detail the internal structure of these early galaxies. The colors in this picture yield clues to the ages, distances, and temperatures of stars, the stuff of galaxies. Blue pinpoints hot young stars. The yellow-white color of several of the galaxies represents the combined light of many stars.