Feb. 21, 2008 -- The universe is a gigantic sausage grinder -- with galaxies chopping and twisting light in all sorts of ways, according to a new study.

Astronomers announced this week the discovery of no less than 67 galaxies caught in the act of mangling the light from far more distant galaxies in a patch of sky just nine times that of the area taken up by a full moon.

If the discovery holds true for the rest of the heavens, there ought to be almost 500,000 more such cases of distorted, gravitationally "lensed" and magnified light from the early universe.

That's great news for astronomers because galactic lensing situations are a lot more than cosmic curiosities. They are also astronomers' only way of gathering light from some very early galaxies -- even if it's sometimes twisted and shredded like a flag in a hurricane.