The space and celestial bodies seem to be matching us in the age of smiley and emoticons.
US space agency NASA’s advanced Hubble Space Telescope has captured a new image of a cluster of galaxy known as SDSS J1038+4849 which appears to be smiling.
Along with being a enjoyable sight as far as the face value is considered, the galaxy cluster also illuminates two scientific phenomena, called pareidolia and gravitational lensing.
The optical phenomenon of gravitational lensing is triggered by the massive gravity forces which are exerted by large galaxy clusters.
The new Hubble image shows blurry lines forming the edges of the smile and the overall face caused by the bending and warping of light due to the gravity imposed by SDSS J1038+4849.
Einstein Ring is a circular effect created by a large cluster of galaxies that distort light forming the gravitational lensing.
On the other hand, pareidolia is the celestial phenomenon that makes this special image more interesting. It is basically a predilection of human for giving meaning onto a seemingly random visual or auditory stimuli, such as recognizing religious faces or symbols in a cereal bowl or on the tree trunk, hearing mysterious messages recorded backwards on the rock-n-roll records, or seeing animal shapes or any other mysterious figures in the clouds.
The passage of evolution has provided hardwiring of the human brain that helps in the recognization of human facial features. Moreover, these neural pathways can easily trick the human brain to focus on facial patterns even at the time when the rest of the brain parts are realizing that they are looking at an inanimate object.
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