The closest Einstein ring ever picked up by the European Space Agency's Euclidean Space Telescope
ESA
Astronomers have identified the closest Einstein ring ever. This is a rare phenomenon in which light from even more off-the-sea galaxies bend due to the gravity of galaxies near Earth. The ring was previously thought to be one galaxy, and was identified over 100 years ago.
Such a galaxy lens, the closest astronomer to date, was predicted by Albert Einstein in 1936 from his general theory of relativity. At the time, he thought it was impossible to observe such an effect. In fact, if he had a strong enough telescope, he would have seen it. “It was there all along, but we didn't know.” Thomas Collett At the University of Portsmouth, UK.
Colette and his team are about 600 million light years from Earth, and the oval galaxy NGC 6505, first discovered in 1884, is actually the second galaxy behind about 600 million light years from Earth. I noticed that the light was bent.
![Close-up of Einstein Ring](https://i0.wp.com/images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/10103031/SEI_239324054.jpg?resize=749%2C499&ssl=1)
Close-up of Einstein Ring
ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, J.-C. Image processing by Cuillandre, T. Li
Team Members Bruno Artieri We observed Einstein rings at the European Space Agency while verifying early test data from the Euclidean telescope. “There was this abundant and obvious Einstein ring. There aren't many in the universe that can produce rings like this,” says Colette.
“We would have expected about one of three opportunities to find something as spectacular as this throughout the research,” he says. “It's essentially a great fortune to find it in the first data. This is probably the most beautiful lens we find on a mission.”
The ring itself is very bright compared to most Einstein rings we know, Colette says. This is not only very close to us, but also due to the Euclidean imaging capabilities. “I'm like someone with poor eyesight,” says Colette. This makes it easy to see four images of distant galaxies. The faint orange lights surrounding the bright ring are the galaxy of Rensing.
Bringing the Einstein ring closer to Earth allows us to test relativity in ways that we cannot do with other distant lenses, says Colette. This is because galaxies can be measured in two ways. , often too far to measure accurately. Einstein's general theory of relativity states that these masses should be the same, so if there are differences it may suggest that the theory of gravity should be revised.
When Colette and his colleagues measured the mass of the lensed galaxy, they also found a slightly higher number than possible from the galaxy's estimated number of stars. This could be due to the dark matter aggregation together at Galaxy's Center. Frédéric Dux He says observatory in southern Europe needs to find more Einstein lenses to check.
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