ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Abell 3827

Abell 3827 is a very big group of stars and galaxies in outer space, kind of like a super big family of stars and planets. It's so big that it's called a cluster of galaxies.

Now imagine if you were playing with a bunch of marbles and you threw them all together in a pile. If you looked at the pile from different angles, you would see different things. This is kind of like Abell 3827.

Scientists have taken pictures of Abell 3827 from many different angles using special telescopes that can see things we can't see with our eyes. These pictures show that Abell 3827 is actually L-shaped, kind of like if you took two sticks and glued them together to make an L shape.

Inside this L-shape, there are lots of galaxies swirling around each other and moving in different directions. But something very strange happens when you look closer at Abell 3827.

You see, light travels in a straight line, but when it passes through a really strong gravitational pull (like the kind created by a lot of matter in one place), it gets bent. Think of how a straw looks when you put it into a glass of water - it looks bent.

Well, when light from the galaxies inside Abell 3827 passes through the gravitational pull of all the other galaxies in the cluster, its path gets bent a lot. This makes the galaxies look like they're stretched out and twisted, almost as if they're being pulled and warped by something.

Scientists call this effect "gravitational lensing" and it's actually really important for studying space. By looking at how the light from galaxies in Abell 3827 gets bent, scientists can learn more about gravity and how it affects things in space.

So, in summary, Abell 3827 is a really big group of stars and galaxies that looks like an L-shape. Inside this shape, lots of galaxies are moving around each other, and their light gets bent because of the strong gravitational pull. This effect is called "gravitational lensing" and it helps scientists learn more about how gravity works in space.