A massive galaxy cluster acts as a giant lens. Its gravity warps the fabric of space, and the light of distant objects, bending around this curvature, is amplified and split into multiple images.
The kitchen of a distant galaxy isn't limited to its bright disk. Around every star system, there's an invisible cloud of gas, like steam above a pot of soup. Astronomers peeked into this steam around galaxies that appear as they were just one and a half billion years after the Big Bang.