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This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features two interacting galaxies that are so intertwined, they have a collective name – Arp 91. Their delicate galactic dance takes place more than 100 million light-years from Earth. The two galaxies comprising Arp 91 have their own names: the lower galaxy, which looks like a bright spot, is NGC 5953, and the oval-shaped galaxy to the upper right is NGC 5954. In reality, both of them are spiral galaxies, but their shapes appear very different because of their orientation with respect to Earth.
Arp 91 provides a particularly vivid example of galactic interaction. NGC 5953 is clearly tugging at NGC 5954, which looks like it is extending one spiral arm downward. The immense gravitational attraction of the two galaxies is causing them to interact. Such gravitational interactions are common and an important part of galactic evolution. Most astronomers think that collisions between spiral galaxies lead to the formation of another type of galaxy, known as elliptical galaxies. These extremely energetic and massive collisions, however, happen on timescales that dwarf a human lifetime. They take place over hundreds of millions of years, so we should not expect Arp 91 to look any different over the course of our lifetimes!
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton; Acknowledgment: J. Schmidt
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency #galaxy #EinsteinRing #gravitationallensing
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
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency #galaxy #EinsteinRing #gravitationallensing
This image is packed full of galaxies! A keen eye can spot exquisite ellipticals and spectacular spirals, seen at various orientations: edge-on with the plane of the galaxy visible, face-on to show off magnificent spiral arms, and everything in between. The vast majority of these specks are galaxies, but to spot a foreground star from our own galaxy, you can look for a point of light with tell-tale diffraction spikes.
The most alluring subject sits at the centre of the frame. With the charming name of SDSSJ0146-0929, the glowing central bulge is a galaxy cluster — a monstrous collection of hundreds of galaxies all shackled together in the unyielding grip of gravity. The mass of this galaxy cluster is large enough to severely distort the spacetime around it, creating the odd, looping curves that almost encircle the cluster.
These graceful arcs are examples of a cosmic phenomenon known as an Einstein ring. The ring is created as the light from a distant objects, like galaxies, pass by an extremely large mass, like this galaxy cluster. In this image, the light from a background galaxy is diverted and distorted around the massive intervening cluster and forced to travel along many different light paths towards Earth, making it seem as though the galaxy is in several places at once.
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, CC BY 4.0
Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
Cosmic smoke & telescope mirrors?
Webb found complex organic molecules similar to smoke or smog in a galaxy more than 12 billion light-years from Earth. This sets a new record for the most distant detection of these big, complicated molecules: bit.ly/43M4YEG
The distant galaxy in question lies behind a much closer foreground galaxy. The gravity of the foreground galaxy is so great that it distorts and magnifies the light of the galaxy behind it, making it easier to see.
In space, where there’s smoke, there are stars — usually. But this galaxy might change astronomers’ long-held belief: These “smoky molecules” were abundant in some areas with little star formation, or were scarce in some areas with active star birth.
Due to how far light from this galaxy had to travel, we’re seeing this galaxy as it was back when the universe was < 1.5 billion years old. The discovery suggests that complex chemistry began occurring in the universe much earlier than we thought.
This image: Astronomers using the Webb telescope discovered evidence of complex organic molecules similar to smoke or smog in the distant galaxy shown here. The galaxy, more than 12 billion light-years away, happens to line up almost perfectly with a second galaxy only three billion light-years away from our perspective on Earth. In this false-color Webb image, the foreground galaxy is shown in blue, while the background galaxy is in red. The organic molecules are highlighted in orange.
Credit: J. Spilker/S. Doyle, NASA, ESA, CSA
Image description: On a black background, there are two notable objects. There is a foreground galaxy seen as a big bright blue dot at the center of the frame. It is surrounded by an orange ring meant to highlight the discovery of organic molecules. Near the top left of the image, there is also a distant background galaxy represented as a tiny red dot.
A close-up view of the centre of the NGC 6505 galaxy, with the bright Einstein ring around its nucleus, captured by ESA’s Euclid space telescope.
The Einstein ring is formed by gravitational lensing, with the mass of galaxy NGC 6505 bending and magnifying the light from a more distant galaxy into a ring. NGC 6505 is a well-known galaxy only around 590 million light-years from Earth, and Euclid’s discovery of a spectacular Einstein ring here was unexpected.
See the Einstein ring image in full-view here
[Image Description: A thin ring of a perfect circular shape and a piercingly bright white disc in its middle are the protagonists of this image. They stand out against a uniformly coloured background of a hazy dark grey. The ring appears as if it was a faint brush stroke, where at four evenly spaced spots more pressure was applied on the brush. These stand out in the ring as four brighter and thicker spots. The white disc within the ring gives the impression of a gaping hole in the image, through its stark contrast to the dark background.]
Credits: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, G. Anselmi, T. Li; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Edited Webb Space Telescope of an Einstein Ring created by the gravity of a relatively near galaxy, warping the light of a much more distant galaxy.
Original caption: This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month features a rare cosmic phenomenon called an Einstein ring. What at first appears to be a single, strangely shaped galaxy is actually two galaxies that are separated by a large distance. The closer foreground galaxy sits at the center of the image, while the more distant background galaxy appears to be wrapped around the closer galaxy, forming a ring. Einstein rings occur when light from a very distant object is bent (or ‘lensed’) about a massive intermediate (or ‘lensing’) object. This is possible because spacetime, the fabric of the Universe itself, is bent by mass, and therefore light travelling through space and time is bent as well. This effect is much too subtle to be observed on a local level, but it sometimes becomes clearly observable when dealing with curvatures of light on enormous, astronomical scales, such as when the light from one galaxy is bent around another galaxy or galaxy cluster. When the lensed object and the lensing object line up just so, the result is the distinctive Einstein ring shape, which appears as a full circle (as seen here) or a partial circle of light around the lensing object, depending on the precision of the alignment. Objects like these are the ideal laboratory in which to research galaxies too faint and distant to otherwise see. The lensing galaxy at the center of this Einstein ring is an elliptical galaxy, as can be seen from the galaxy’s bright core and smooth, featureless body. This galaxy belongs to a galaxy cluster named SMACSJ0028.2-7537. The lensed galaxy wrapped around the elliptical galaxy is a spiral galaxy. Even though its image has been warped as its light travelled around the galaxy in its path, individual star clusters and gas structures are clearly visible. The Webb data used in this image were taken as part of the Strong Lensing and Cluster Evolution (SLICE) survey (programme 5594), which is led by Guillaume Mahler at University of Liège in Belgium, and consists of a team of international astronomers. This survey aims to trace 8 billion years of galaxy cluster evolution by targeting 182 galaxy clusters with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera instrument. This image also incorporates data from two of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s instruments, the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys. [Image Description: In the centre is an elliptical galaxy, seen as an oval-shaped glow around a small bright core. Around this is wrapped a broad band of light, appearing like a spiral galaxy stretched and warped into a ring, with bright blue lines drawn through it where the spiral arms have been stretched into circles. A few distant objects are visible around the ring on a black background.]
The ring of light surrounding the centre of the galaxy NGC 6505, captured by ESA’s Euclid telescope, is a stunning example of an Einstein ring. NGC 6505 is acting as a gravitational lens, bending light from a galaxy far behind it. The almost perfect alignment of NGC 6505 and the background galaxy has bent and magnified the light from the background galaxy into a spectacular ring. This rare phenomenon was first theorised to exist by Einstein in his general theory of relativity.
This wide field shows the extended stellar halo of NGC 6505 and showcases the Einstein ring, surrounded by colourful foreground stars and background galaxies.
Download the close-up image of the Einstein ring here
[Image description: A sea of colourful stars and galaxies appear to swim in the vast blackness of space around a hazy halo at centre stage. In the middle of the image, the fuzzy-looking bulb of light in a warm shade of yellow extends around a small bright spot, nestled within a thin light circle that appears to be drawn closely around it. As we follow the central halo’s rim outwards, its brightness dims and blends smoothly into its surroundings. Here, extended discs of shades ranging from a warm purple to golden yellow, and piercing dots of light with sharp diffraction spikes are spread evenly across the image.
Credits: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, G. Anselmi, T. Li; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The narrow galaxy elegantly curving around its spherical companion in this image is a fantastic example of a truly strange and very rare phenomenon called an Einstein Ring. This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, depicts GAL-CLUS-022058s, located in the southern hemisphere constellation of Fornax (The Furnace). GAL-CLUS-022058s is the largest and one of the most complete Einstein Rings ever discovered in our universe.
First theorized to exist by Einstein in his general theory of relativity, this object’s unusual shape can be explained by a process called gravitational lensing, which causes light shining from far away to be bent and pulled by the gravity of an object between its source and the observer.
In this case, the light from the background galaxy has been distorted into the curve we see by the gravity of the galaxy cluster sitting in front of it. The near exact alignment of the background galaxy with the central elliptical galaxy of the cluster, seen in the middle of this image, has warped and magnified the image of the background galaxy around itself into an almost perfect ring. The gravity from other galaxies in the cluster is soon to cause additional distortions. Objects like these are the ideal laboratory in which to research galaxies too faint and distant to otherwise see.
Credit: Saurabh Jha (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey); Acknowledgement: Leo Shatz
For more information, visit: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2021/news-2021-051
This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month features a rare cosmic phenomenon called an Einstein ring. What at first appears to be a single, strangely shaped galaxy is actually two galaxies that are separated by a large distance. The closer foreground galaxy sits at the center of the image, while the more distant background galaxy appears to be wrapped around the closer galaxy, forming a ring.
Einstein rings occur when light from a very distant object is bent (or ‘lensed’) about a massive intermediate (or ‘lensing’) object. This is possible because spacetime, the fabric of the Universe itself, is bent by mass, and therefore light travelling through space and time is bent as well. This effect is much too subtle to be observed on a local level, but it sometimes becomes clearly observable when dealing with curvatures of light on enormous, astronomical scales. Such as when the light from one galaxy is bent around another galaxy or galaxy cluster.
When the lensed object and the lensing object are perfectly aligned, the result is the distinctive Einstein ring shape. This appears as a full circle (as seen here) or a partial circle of light around the lensing object, depending on the precision of the alignment. Objects like these are the ideal laboratory in which to research galaxies too faint and distant to otherwise see.
The lensing galaxy at the center of this Einstein ring is an elliptical galaxy, as can be seen from the galaxy’s bright core and smooth, featureless body. This galaxy belongs to a galaxy cluster named SMACSJ0028.2-7537. The lensed galaxy wrapped around the elliptical galaxy is a spiral galaxy. Even though its image has been warped as its light travelled around the galaxy in its path, individual star clusters and gas structures are clearly visible.
The Webb data used in this image were taken as part of the Strong Lensing and Cluster Evolution (SLICE) survey (programme 5594), which is led by Guillaume Mahler at University of Liège in Belgium, and consists of a team of international astronomers. This survey aims to trace 8 billion years of galaxy cluster evolution by targeting 182 galaxy clusters with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera instrument. This image also incorporates data from two of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s instruments, the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
[Image Description: In the centre is an elliptical galaxy, seen as an oval-shaped glow around a small bright core. Around this is wrapped a broad band of light, appearing like a spiral galaxy stretched and warped into a ring, with bright blue lines drawn through it where the spiral arms have been stretched into circles. A few distant objects are visible around the ring on a black background.]
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Mahler; CC BY 4.0
Acknowledgements: M. A. McDonald
What are we looking at when we study this image? A very distant galaxy that lies 19.5 billion light-years from Earth? Or a much closer luminous red galaxy that is a (relatively) small 2.7 billion light-years away? Or a third galaxy that appears to be fairly close to the second? The answer, perhaps confusingly, is that we are looking at all three. More precisely, we are looking at light emitted from all of those galaxies, even though the most distant galaxy lies directly behind the first as seen from Earth. In fact, it is that very alignment that makes the particular visuals in this image possible.
The central bright dot in this image is one of the closer galaxies, known by the lengthy — but informative — name of SDSS J020941.27+001558.4 (galaxy names in this format provide precise information about their location in the sky). The other bright dot above it — that appears to be intersecting a curving crescent of light — is SDSS J020941.23+001600.7, the second closer galaxy. And finally, that curving crescent of light itself is the ‘lensed’ light from the very distant galaxy. This is known as HerS J020941.1+001557, and it is also an interesting example of a phenomenon known as an Einstein ring.
Einstein rings occur when light from a very distant object is bent (or ‘lensed’) about a massive intermediate (or ‘lensing)’ object. This is possible because spacetime, the fabric of the Universe itself, is bent by mass, and therefore light travelling through spacetime is as well. This is much too subtle to be observed on a local level, but sometimes becomes clearly observable when dealing with curvatures of light on enormous, astronomical scales, for example, when the light emitted from a galaxy is bent around another galaxy or galaxy cluster. When the lensed object and the lensing object line up just so, the result is the distinctive Einstein ring shape, which appears as a full or partial circle of light around the lensing object, depending on how precise the alignment is. This partial Einstein ring is of particular interest as it was identified thanks to a citizen science project — SPACE WARPS — meaning that members of the public enabled the discovery of this object!
[Image Description: A field full of distant galaxies on a dark background. Most of the galaxies are very small, but there are a few larger galaxies and some stars where detail can be made out. In the very centre there is an elliptical galaxy with a brightly glowing core and a broad disc. A reddish, warped ring of light, thicker at one side, surrounds its core. A small galaxy intersects the ring as a bright dot.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, H. Nayyeri, L. Marchetti, J. Lowenthal; CC BY 4.0
Edited Webb Space Telescope of an Einstein Ring created by the gravity of a relatively near galaxy, warping the light of a much more distant galaxy. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month features a rare cosmic phenomenon called an Einstein ring. What at first appears to be a single, strangely shaped galaxy is actually two galaxies that are separated by a large distance. The closer foreground galaxy sits at the center of the image, while the more distant background galaxy appears to be wrapped around the closer galaxy, forming a ring. Einstein rings occur when light from a very distant object is bent (or ‘lensed’) about a massive intermediate (or ‘lensing’) object. This is possible because spacetime, the fabric of the Universe itself, is bent by mass, and therefore light travelling through space and time is bent as well. This effect is much too subtle to be observed on a local level, but it sometimes becomes clearly observable when dealing with curvatures of light on enormous, astronomical scales, such as when the light from one galaxy is bent around another galaxy or galaxy cluster. When the lensed object and the lensing object line up just so, the result is the distinctive Einstein ring shape, which appears as a full circle (as seen here) or a partial circle of light around the lensing object, depending on the precision of the alignment. Objects like these are the ideal laboratory in which to research galaxies too faint and distant to otherwise see. The lensing galaxy at the center of this Einstein ring is an elliptical galaxy, as can be seen from the galaxy’s bright core and smooth, featureless body. This galaxy belongs to a galaxy cluster named SMACSJ0028.2-7537. The lensed galaxy wrapped around the elliptical galaxy is a spiral galaxy. Even though its image has been warped as its light travelled around the galaxy in its path, individual star clusters and gas structures are clearly visible. The Webb data used in this image were taken as part of the Strong Lensing and Cluster Evolution (SLICE) survey (programme 5594), which is led by Guillaume Mahler at University of Liège in Belgium, and consists of a team of international astronomers. This survey aims to trace 8 billion years of galaxy cluster evolution by targeting 182 galaxy clusters with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera instrument. This image also incorporates data from two of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s instruments, the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys. [Image Description: In the centre is an elliptical galaxy, seen as an oval-shaped glow around a small bright core. Around this is wrapped a broad band of light, appearing like a spiral galaxy stretched and warped into a ring, with bright blue lines drawn through it where the spiral arms have been stretched into circles. A few distant objects are visible around the ring on a black background.]
Expand your imagination 🍥
What appears to be a single galaxy is actually two that are very far apart! The closer galaxy lies in the center of the image, while the more distant galaxy appears to be wrapped around it in a phenomenon we call an “Einstein ring.”
Einstein rings occur when light from a distant galaxy gets bent by the gravity of a massive closer-by object, in this case another galaxy. The light from the distant galaxy that would otherwise travel in a straight line follows the bend of gravitationally warped spacetime, brightening the light from behind the galaxy and acting as a sort of natural magnifying glass. Einstein predicted this effect in his theory of relativity.
Read more: esawebb.org/images/potm2503a/
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Mahler Acknowledgement: M. A. McDonald
Image description: In the center is an elliptical galaxy, seen as an oval-shaped glow around a small bright core. Around this is wrapped a broad band of light, appearing like a spiral galaxy stretched and warped into a ring, with bright blue lines drawn through it where the spiral arms have been stretched into circles. A few distant objects are visible around the ring on a black background.
This image is packed full of galaxies! A keen eye can spot exquisite ellipticals and spectacular spirals, seen at various orientations: edge-on with the plane of the galaxy visible, face-on to show off magnificent spiral arms, and everything in between. The vast majority of these specks are galaxies, but to spot a foreground star from our own galaxy, you can look for a point of light with tell-tale diffraction spikes.
The most alluring subject sits at the center of the frame. With the charming name of SDSS J0146-0929, this is a galaxy cluster — a monstrous collection of hundreds of galaxies all shackled together in the unyielding grip of gravity. The mass of this galaxy cluster is large enough to severely distort the space-time around it, creating the odd, looping curves that almost encircle the center of the cluster.
These graceful arcs are examples of a cosmic phenomenon known as an Einstein Ring. The ring is created as the light from distant objects, like galaxies, pass by an extremely large mass, like this galaxy cluster. In this image, the light from a background galaxy is diverted and distorted around the massive intervening cluster and forced to travel along many different light paths toward Earth, making it seem as though the galaxy is in several places at once.
For more information, visit: www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2018/hubble-finds-an-e...
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the Einstein Ring around distant galaxies. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: The narrow galaxy elegantly curving around its spherical companion in this image is a fantastic example of a truly strange and very rare phenomenon. This image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, depicts GAL-CLUS-022058s, located in the southern hemisphere constellation of Fornax (The Furnace). GAL-CLUS-022058s is the largest and one of the most complete Einstein rings ever discovered in our Universe. The object has been nicknamed by the Principal Investigator and his team who are studying this Einstein ring as the "Molten Ring", which alludes to its appearance and host constellation. First theorised to exist by Einstein in his general theory of relativity, this object’s unusual shape can be explained by a process called gravitational lensing, which causes light shining from far away to be bent and pulled by the gravity of an object between its source and the observer. In this case, the light from the background galaxy has been distorted into the curve we see by the gravity of the galaxy cluster sitting in front of it. The near exact alignment of the background galaxy with the central elliptical galaxy of the cluster, seen in the middle of this image, has warped and magnified the image of the background galaxy around itself into an almost perfect ring. The gravity from other galaxies in the cluster is soon to cause additional distortions. Objects like these are the ideal laboratory in which to research galaxies too faint and distant to otherwise see.
A nice Einstein ring with this one, presumably formed by a single galaxy present nearly centered behind the lensing foreground mass. A nice variety of galaxies presents as a colorful image. The upper right ring arc has a couple of overlapping galaxies with darkish rims, which I suppose is dust that would otherwise remain invisible had the background galaxy not arced behind them. Or is it just more gravitational lensing? Hard to say.
Resolving the Star Formation in Distant Galaxies
WFC3/IR blobs were filled with cloned data.
Red: hst_13003_04_wfc3_ir_f160w_drz
Cyan: hst_13003_04_wfc3_ir_f105w_drz
Blue: hst_13003_04_wfc3_uvis_f606w_drz, hst_13003_04_wfc3_uvis_f390w_drz
North is 8.5° clockwise from up.
From an exhibit at Allegheny Observatory. They had a clear piece of plastic with a lenslike lump built into it, and a grid behind. I never realized that it would create such complex loops around the center. Large (or small, such as black holes) cosmic objects with strong gravity bend light in exactly the same way.
This image is my prior art which got acknowledged for publication NASA - Hubble Sees a ‘Molten Ring’
A rare object in space: Einstein Ring GAL-CLUS-022058-38303 imaged by Hubble Space Telescope and buried in HLA archive for few years. Colorized image based on single filter channel (IR F160W).
An Einstein ring, also known as an Einstein–Chwolson ring or Chwolson ring, is created when light from a galaxy or star passes by a massive object on route to the Earth. Due to gravitational lensing, the light is diverted, making it seem to come from different places. If source, lens, and observer are all aligned, the light appears as a ring.
GAL-CLUS-022058-38303 is the largest, nearly-complete Einstein ring known. The ring has an extreme diameter, approximately 20 arcseconds, and is the result of gravitational lensing by a massive cluster elliptical galaxy. This spectacular system shows two source galaxies (perhaps interacting), resulting in double arcs with striking differences in color. The image unveils detailed structure in the ring arcs (which exhibit a complex structure), allowing for the identification of multiply imaged regions in the source galaxies.
More general information about Einsten Ring:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_ring
Image credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Dr. Saurabh W. Jha
Processing and copyright: Leo Shatz
Description source and credits: HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE OBSERVING PROGRAM 13756
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of SDSSJ0146-0929 and its Einstein Ring. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: This image is packed full of galaxies! A keen eye can spot exquisite ellipticals and spectacular spirals, seen at various orientations: edge-on with the plane of the galaxy visible, face-on to show off magnificent spiral arms, and everything in between. The vast majority of these specks are galaxies, but to spot a foreground star from our own galaxy, you can look for a point of light with tell-tale diffraction spikes. The most alluring subject sits at the centre of the frame. With the charming name of SDSSJ0146-0929, the glowing central bulge is a galaxy cluster — a monstrous collection of hundreds of galaxies all shackled together in the unyielding grip of gravity. The mass of this galaxy cluster is large enough to severely distort the spacetime around it, creating the odd, looping curves that almost encircle the cluster. These graceful arcs are examples of a cosmic phenomenon known as an Einstein ring. The ring is created as the light from a distant objects, like galaxies, pass by an extremely large mass, like this galaxy cluster. In this image, the light from a background galaxy is diverted and distorted around the massive intervening cluster and forced to travel along many different light paths towards Earth, making it seem as though the galaxy is in several places at once.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the Einstein Ring around distant galaxies. Inverted grayscale variant.
Original caption: The narrow galaxy elegantly curving around its spherical companion in this image is a fantastic example of a truly strange and very rare phenomenon. This image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, depicts GAL-CLUS-022058s, located in the southern hemisphere constellation of Fornax (The Furnace). GAL-CLUS-022058s is the largest and one of the most complete Einstein rings ever discovered in our Universe. The object has been nicknamed by the Principal Investigator and his team who are studying this Einstein ring as the "Molten Ring", which alludes to its appearance and host constellation. First theorised to exist by Einstein in his general theory of relativity, this object’s unusual shape can be explained by a process called gravitational lensing, which causes light shining from far away to be bent and pulled by the gravity of an object between its source and the observer. In this case, the light from the background galaxy has been distorted into the curve we see by the gravity of the galaxy cluster sitting in front of it. The near exact alignment of the background galaxy with the central elliptical galaxy of the cluster, seen in the middle of this image, has warped and magnified the image of the background galaxy around itself into an almost perfect ring. The gravity from other galaxies in the cluster is soon to cause additional distortions. Objects like these are the ideal laboratory in which to research galaxies too faint and distant to otherwise see.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of SDSSJ0146-0929 and its Einstein Ring. Color/processing variant.
Original caption: This image is packed full of galaxies! A keen eye can spot exquisite ellipticals and spectacular spirals, seen at various orientations: edge-on with the plane of the galaxy visible, face-on to show off magnificent spiral arms, and everything in between. The vast majority of these specks are galaxies, but to spot a foreground star from our own galaxy, you can look for a point of light with tell-tale diffraction spikes. The most alluring subject sits at the centre of the frame. With the charming name of SDSSJ0146-0929, the glowing central bulge is a galaxy cluster — a monstrous collection of hundreds of galaxies all shackled together in the unyielding grip of gravity. The mass of this galaxy cluster is large enough to severely distort the spacetime around it, creating the odd, looping curves that almost encircle the cluster. These graceful arcs are examples of a cosmic phenomenon known as an Einstein ring. The ring is created as the light from a distant objects, like galaxies, pass by an extremely large mass, like this galaxy cluster. In this image, the light from a background galaxy is diverted and distorted around the massive intervening cluster and forced to travel along many different light paths towards Earth, making it seem as though the galaxy is in several places at once.
Edited European Southern Observatory image of SDP 81 - a well-formed Einstein ring.
ALMA's Long Baseline Campaign has produced a spectacularly detailed image of a distant galaxy being gravitationally lensed, revealing star-forming regions - something that has never seen before at this level of detail in a galaxy so remote. The new observations are far more detailed than any previously made of such a distant galaxy, including those made using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and reveal clumps of star formation in the galaxy equivalent to giant versions of the Orion Nebula. The gravitationally lensed galaxy SDP.81, which appears as an almost perfect Einstein Ring, is seen here.
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of the Einstein Ring around distant galaxies.
Original caption: The narrow galaxy elegantly curving around its spherical companion in this image is a fantastic example of a truly strange and very rare phenomenon. This image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, depicts GAL-CLUS-022058s, located in the southern hemisphere constellation of Fornax (The Furnace). GAL-CLUS-022058s is the largest and one of the most complete Einstein rings ever discovered in our Universe. The object has been nicknamed by the Principal Investigator and his team who are studying this Einstein ring as the "Molten Ring", which alludes to its appearance and host constellation. First theorised to exist by Einstein in his general theory of relativity, this object’s unusual shape can be explained by a process called gravitational lensing, which causes light shining from far away to be bent and pulled by the gravity of an object between its source and the observer. In this case, the light from the background galaxy has been distorted into the curve we see by the gravity of the galaxy cluster sitting in front of it. The near exact alignment of the background galaxy with the central elliptical galaxy of the cluster, seen in the middle of this image, has warped and magnified the image of the background galaxy around itself into an almost perfect ring. The gravity from other galaxies in the cluster is soon to cause additional distortions. Objects like these are the ideal laboratory in which to research galaxies too faint and distant to otherwise see.
La mecánica cuántica es fantástica para el otro extremo del espectro, para las cosas pequeñas
Un investigador brasilero llamado Dr. Celso Atello cree firmemente que los funcionarios del gobierno brasilero han silenciado este caso, y que tienen pruebas claras de que existen distorsiones temporales que no quieren difundir para no asustar a la ciudadanía.
¿Los puentes de Einstein podrían explicar lo sucedido?
La teoría de la relatividad general de Albert Einstein fue una teoría extraña y misteriosa entre las primeras teorías clásicas de la física,
En su teoría de la relatividad general, Einstein sugiere que existen curvas en el espacio y el tiempo pudiendo existir la interconexión entre el espacio y el tiempo.
Estas predicciones llevaron a la producción de nuevos conceptos científicos como los agujeros negros y los agujeros de gusano.
Escuchemos el relato…
Edited Hubble Space Telescope image of superimposed galaxies.
Original caption: What are we looking at when we study this image? A very distant galaxy that lies 19.5 billion light-years from Earth? Or a much closer luminous red galaxy that is a (relatively) small 2.7 billion light-years away? Or a third galaxy that appears to be fairly close to the second? The answer, perhaps confusingly, is that we are looking at all three. More precisely, we are looking at light emitted from all of those galaxies, even though the most distant galaxy lies directly behind the first as seen from Earth. In fact, it is that very alignment that makes the particular visuals in this image possible. The central bright dot in this image is one of the closer galaxies, known by the lengthy — but informative — name of SDSS J020941.27+001558.4 (galaxy names in this format provide precise information about their location in the sky). The other bright dot above it — that appears to be intersecting a curving crescent of light — is SDSS J020941.23+001600.7, the second closer galaxy. And finally, that curving crescent of light itself is the ‘lensed’ light from the very distant galaxy. This is known as HerS J020941.1+001557, and it is also an interesting example of a phenomenon known as an Einstein ring. Einstein rings occur when light from a very distant object is bent (or ‘lensed’) about a massive intermediate (or ‘lensing)’ object. This is possible because spacetime, the fabric of the Universe itself, is bent by mass, and therefore light travelling through spacetime is as well. This is much too subtle to be observed on a local level, but sometimes becomes clearly observable when dealing with curvatures of light on enormous, astronomical scales, for example, when the light emitted from a galaxy is bent around another galaxy or galaxy cluster. When the lensed object and the lensing object line up just so, the result is the distinctive Einstein ring shape, which appears as a full or partial circle of light around the lensing object, depending on how precise the alignment is. This partial Einstein ring is of particular interest as it was identified thanks to a citizen science project — SPACE WARPS — meaning that members of the public enabled the discovery of this object! [Image Description: A field full of distant galaxies on a dark background. Most of the galaxies are very small, but there are a few larger galaxies and some stars where detail can be made out. In the very centre there is an elliptical galaxy with a brightly glowing core and a broad disc. A reddish, warped ring of light, thicker at one side, surrounds its core. A small galaxy intersects the ring as a bright dot.] Links Pan: So near, or so far?