Into Infinity

"No thinking human being can look up in the sky and not wonder about all this," says NASA's space sciences chief, Ed Weiler.

The telescope's view has been extended beyond its technical limitations by making use of naturally occurring magnifying glasses in space called gravitational lenses. Predicted by Einstein, this phenomenon occurs when space itself is warped by the gravitational forces of a massive amount of matter, such as clusters of galaxies. Light from even more distant objects curves around such masses, appearing magnified.

"Hubble has observed some of the most extraordinary things the human mind has ever imagined," says Richard Berendzen, an American University physics professor.