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Hubble helps find light-bending world orbiting two stars

A distant planet orbiting two red dwarf stars, found by its warping of spacetime, has been confirmed using observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The planet’s mass caused what is known as a microlensing event, where light is bent by an object’s gravitational field. This is the first circumbinary planet to be confirmed following detection of a microlensing event.

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Hubble observes galaxies’ evolution in slow motion

It is known today that merging galaxies play a large role in their evolution, and the formation of elliptical galaxies in particular. However, there are only a few merging systems close enough to be observed in depth. The pair of interacting galaxies seen here — known as NGC 3921 — is one of these systems. But ‘close’ is a relative term: NGC 3921 lies 270 million light-years away.