An international team of astronomers have obtained the most excellent view yet of a collision that took place between two galaxies back when the universe was only half its current age by using a number of space- and ground-based telescopes around the world.

The astronomers used a galaxy-sized magnifying glass, he galaxy H-ATLAS J142935.3-002836, to reveal otherwise invisible detail, according to NASA. They also relied on

a battery of observatories, which included the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), among others.

The studies of the galaxy revealed that this complex and distant object looks like the local galaxy collision, the Antennae Galaxies.

Their work is detailed in the latest edition of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

"While astronomers are often limited by the power of their telescopes, in some cases our ability to see detail is hugely boosted by natural lenses, created by the Universe," said lead author Hugo Messias of the Universidad de Concepción (Chile) and the Centro de Astronomía e Astrofísica da Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal), according to RedOrbit.com. "Einstein predicted in his theory of general relativity that, given enough mass, light does not travel in a straight line but will be bent in a similar way to light refracted by a normal lens."

Cosmic lenses of this kind are created by massive structures, like galaxies and galaxy clusters, which deflect the light from objects behind them thanks to their strong gravity. This is known as gravitational lensing, according to NASA.

The magnifying properties of this effect allows researchers to analyze objects that would not normally be visible otherwise and to directly compare local galaxies with much more remote ones. Position is key to make sure the effect works.

One of these sources is H-ATLAS J142935.3-002836, which was found in the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS). Though it is very faint in visible light pictures, it is among the brightest gravitationally-lensed objects in the far-infrared regime that has been discovered so far, according to NASA.

"With the combined power of Hubble and these other telescopes we have been able to locate this very fortunate alignment, take advantage of the foreground galaxy's lensing effects and characterize the properties of this distant merger and the extreme starburst within it," said Rob Ivison, ESO's Director of Science and a co-author of the new study, according to RedOrbit.com.  "It is very much a testament to the power of telescope teamwork."

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