The effects of weak gravitational lensing by the Universe's large-scale structure on the observed shapes and positions of galaxies.
This video illustrates how light from distant galaxies bends past the galaxies and galaxy clusters of the Universe's "cosmic web." By the time the light makes its way through the cosmic web and reaches us, the galaxies’ observed shapes and positions have changed. This subtle distortion effect is what scientists call weak gravitational lensing. The effect is highly exaggerated in this video, and studies of weak lensing distortions used to measure how mass is distributed in the Universe typically require measurements of millions of galaxies. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will observe billions of galaxies and enable more precise weak lensing measurements than have been possible before.
