September 11, 2008--A magnificent cluster of galaxies, named Abell 1689, sparkles 2.3 billion light-years from Earth in a composite image created by the Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Abell 1689's hundred-million-degree gasses have a purple hue in the image and appear to be sprinkled with glowing yellow galaxies.

The cluster's dark matter and one trillion stars create a giant gravitational lens--some two million light-years wide--that bends and distorts the light from galaxies seen behind Abell 1689.