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Extremely rare ‘Einstein ring’ discovered close to Earth
- The Euclid space telescope has discovered an extremely rare Einstein ring, formed when two galaxies are almost perfectly aligned, with one behind the other from a fixed perspective.
- The ring is one of the best examples we have of gravitational lensing phenomenon that Albert Einstein predicted in 1915.
- Close-up view of the centre of galaxy NGC 6505, with the bright Einstein ring around its nucleus, was captured by ESA’s Euclid space telescope.
- The Einstein ring is formed by gravitational lensing with mass of galaxy bending and magnifying the light from a more distant galaxy into a ring.
- Studying the gravitational effects of Einstein rings can help scientists learn more about the expansion of the universe, detect the effects of invisible dark matter and dark energy, and probe background sources of light that are bent by dark matter.
- Euclid began its detailed survey of the sky on February 14, 2024 and is gradually creating an extensive 3D map of the universe.
- The space telescope is expected to map more than one third of the sky, observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years.
- The ring spotted by Euclid is located in the galaxy NGC 6505 at 590 million light-years away, and is made up of light from a galaxy that is further out and more luminous.
- Less than 1,000 strong lenses were previously known to astronomers and even fewer have been imaged at high resolution.
- Euclid is expected to find 100,000 strong lenses.
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