New infrared image taken with Wide range camera 3 (WFC3) on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, showing dozens of galaxies – SDSS J020941.27+001558.4, SDSS J020941.23+001600.7, and the Cousslation at HerS J020941.1+00155.
This Hubble image shows a variety of distant galaxies in the Cetus constellation: Most galaxies are very small, but there are a few large galaxies and a few stars. At the center is an elliptical galaxy with a glowing core and a wide disk. Its center is surrounded by a ring of diffracted red light, thick on one side; A small star intersects the ring as a bright spot. Image source: NASA / ESA / Hubble / H. Nayyeri / L. Marchetti / J. Lowenthal.
“What do we see when we read this image?” Hubble astronomers said in a statement.
“A very distant galaxy, 19.5 billion light-years from Earth? Or a (relatively) small galaxy 2.7 billion light-years away, a glowing red galaxy very close by? Or a third galaxy that appears much closer to the second galaxy?
“The answer, perhaps confusingly, is that we see all three.”
“More precisely, we see the light emanating from all those galaxies, even if the most distant galaxy is directly behind us as we see from Earth.”
“In fact, that alignment is what makes some of the scenes in this movie possible.”
“The central bright spot in this image is one of the nearest galaxies, known by its long – but informative – name. SDSS J020941.27+001558.4They said.
“The other bright spot above it—which seems to cut through a curved crescent of light— SDSS J020941.23+001600.7“The second closest galaxy.”
“Ultimately, the curved crescent of light is the ‘lensing’ light of the distant galaxy, known as… Its J020941.1+001557“.
Light from Hers J020941.1+001557 is bent and amplified by the gravity of the foreground galaxy, known as the Einstein ring.
“Einstein rings occur when light from a very distant object bends around a massive intermediate body,” the astronomers said.
“This is possible because space-time, the fabric of the universe, is curved by mass, so light travels through space-time as well.”
“It’s too subtle to be observed at the local level, but it sometimes becomes clearly visible when dealing with the bending of light on huge astronomical scales, for example, when light from one galaxy bends around another galaxy or galaxy cluster.” last.”
“When the lensed object and the lensed object are in alignment, the result is the characteristic Einstein ring pattern that appears as a complete or partial circle of light around the lensed object, depending on how precise the alignment is.”
“This partial Einstein ring is of particular interest because it was identified thanks to a citizen science project – Space wars — means members of the public helped find the item.
