The first time I saw this image taken by the Chandra X-ray Observatory I instantly thought of dozens scenes in science fiction movies, games, and illustrations—interstellar ships about to come out of hyperspace portals or wormholes. Spectacular photo.
The reason why this looks like wormhole is because a galaxy in the foreground is acting as gravitational lens: Its gravity bends light, amplifying and deforming what’s behind it. The image combines visible color and the X-ray—in pink—a quasar located about 6 billion light years from Earth that is 1.6 million light years across. It’s in the constellation Crater, in the Southern Hemisphere.
