It's a Smiley in Space! :)

If your children are mad on space, rockets and aliens then this here's something to make them smile. It's an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of a cluster of galaxies smiling at us!

The smiley face image is explained by the Hubble website like this:

In the centre of this image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the galaxy cluster SDSS J1038+4849 — and it seems to be smiling.

You can make out its two orange eyes and white button nose. In the case of this “happy face”, the two eyes are very bright galaxies and the misleading smile lines are actually arcs caused by an effect known as strong gravitational lensing.

That seems a little dull to me, and I'd be tempted to say it was Father Christmas watching their behaviour all year round! My son would be completely happy with the official version though.

Hope this made you smile. :)