Hubble Telescope Picks Up Smiley Face in the Stars

I was delighted to hear major news outlets that usually feed us stories of crime, violence, anger, hatred and the like pause to report this story.

The Hubble Space Telescope discovered a new constellation in galaxy cluster SDSS J1038+4849 and it kind of looks like a smiley face!

The picture was recently released by NASA after the cluster was spotted by amateur star gazer Judy Schmidt.

Its two bright glowing eyes are separate galaxies and the face and smile itself are distinct itself due to the celestial effect known as strong gravitational lensing.

"Galaxy clusters are the most massive structures in the Universe and exert such a powerful gravitational pull that they warp the spacetime around them and act as cosmic lenses which can magnify, distort and bend the light behind them," the Hubble website explains, citing Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Now. keep in mind that I realize that we all have free will and our choices to believe how we do are our own. My choice is to believe in God.

That He is the mastermind of our universe. That He is a numbers guy. That everything and everyone is built on equations -- from galaxies, time, our own marvels of technology and engineering and the number of digits, heartbeats, teeth and so on that we humans possess. That He loves us more than we can think or imagine. That, unlike the common perception that He is this celestial taskmaster waiting to take us down a notch, He is not mad at us. My experience is the absolute opposite.

So, it may seem naive to some or that I'm deluded and living a Pollyanna existence, but I believe this is a scientific example of God's love toward us. That he used an amateur to find it and that NASA acknowledged it I think are amazing.

In the hard, cold world we live in, there is beauty and happiness all around. Even through the lens of a telescope.