ESA, NASA, J.-P. Kneib (Caltech/Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees) and R. Ellis (Caltech)
Galaxy cluster Abell 2218 is acting as a powerful lens, magnifying all galaxies lying behind the cluster's core. The lensed galaxies are all stretched along the shear direction, and some of them are multiply imaged. Those multiple images usually appear as pair of images with a third -- generally fainter -- counter image, as is the case for the very distant object.