An international team of astronomers, using NASA's Fermi
observatory, has made the first-ever gamma-ray measurements of a gravitational
lens, a kind of natural telescope formed when a rare cosmic alignment allows
the gravity of a massive object to bend and amplify light from a more distant
source.
This accomplishment opens new avenues for research,
including a novel way to probe emission regions near supermassive black holes.
It may even be possible to find other gravitational lenses with data from the
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.