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Hubble Snapshot of "Molten Ring" Galaxy Prompts New Research

Hubble Space Telescope's glamour shots of the universe are so revealing they nearly always have a discovery behind them.

 

In this image, a remote galaxy is greatly magnified and distorted by the effects of gravitationally warped space. After its public release, astronomers used the picture to measure the galaxy's distance of 9.4 billion light-years. This places the galaxy at the peak epoch of star formation in cosmic evolution.

 

In this particular snapshot, a science discovery followed the release of a Hubble observation of a striking example of a deep-space optical phenomenon dubbed an "Einstein ring." The photo was released in December 2020 as an example of one of the largest, nearly complete Einstein rings ever seen.

 

Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. Jha; Acknowledgment: L. Shatz

 

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Uploaded on October 3, 2021