Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Here’s A Nine-Billion-Year Old Gravitational Lens In Space

Here’s A Nine-Billion-Year Old Gravitational Lens In Space:
A picture of the object J1000+0221, which demonstrates the most distant gravitational lens ever discovered. This Hubble picture shows a normal galaxy's center region (the glow in the picture), but the object is also aligned with a younger, star-creating galaxy that is in behind. The object in the foreground pulls light from the background galaxy with gravity -- making rings of  pictures. Credit: NASA/ESA/A. van der Wel
A picture of the object J1000+0221, which demonstrates the most distant gravitational lens ever discovered. This Hubble picture shows a normal galaxy’s center region (the glow in the picture), but the object is also aligned with a younger, star-creating galaxy that is in behind. The object in the foreground pulls light from the background galaxy with gravity — making rings of pictures. Credit: NASA/ESA/A. van der Wel
Here’s a picture of what deflected light looks like from 9.4 billion years away. This is the most faraway “gravitational lens” that we know of, and a demonstration of how a galaxy can bend the light of an object behind it. The phenomenon was first predicted by Einstein, and is a handy way of measuring mass (including the mass of mysterious dark matter.)
“The discovery was completely by chance,” stated Arjen van der Wel, who is with the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany.
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Read the rest of Here’s A Nine-Billion-Year Old Gravitational Lens In Space (344 words)

© Elizabeth Howell for Universe Today, 2013. |Permalink |No comment |
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