- 4526 - EINSTEIN'S - ring of stars? - The star-studded halo in the image is made up of light from a quasar. This is a supermassive black hole at the heart of a young galaxy that shoots out powerful energy jets as it gobbles up enormous amounts of matter. This quasar is named RX J1131-1231 and is located around 6 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Crater.
------------------------------------------ 4526
- EINSTEIN'S -
ring of stars?
-
- The James Webb telescope spies this
'Einstein ring' made of warped quasar light.
The warped quasar “RX J1131-1231”, is adorned with four bright spots
birthed by mind-bending space-time trickery.
-
- A beautiful, "bejeweled" halo of
warped light generated by a monster black hole takes center stage in one of the
latest James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images. The luminous loop, which is
strikingly similar to an "Einstein ring," is adorned by four bright
spots, but, not all of them are real.
-
- The quasar's circular shape is the result
of gravitational lensing, in which the light from a distant object such as a
galaxy, quasar or supernova travels through space-time that has been curved by
the gravity of another massive object located between the distant object and
the observer.
-
- As a result, light appears to bend around
the middle object even though it is traveling in a straight line. In this case,
the quasar is being lensed by a closer unnamed galaxy, which is visible as a
blue dot in the center of the luminous ring.
-
- Gravitational lensing also magnifies our
view of extremely distant objects like RX J1131-1231, which would otherwise be
almost invisible to us. This magnification effect can create bright spots in
lensed objects, which shine like brilliant gemstones in a piece of jewelry,
especially when the distant object is not perfectly aligned with the observer.
-
- The orientation and appearance of jewels around the ring tell us that they are
mirror images of a single bright spot, which has been duplicated by the lensing
effect. Bright spot duplication is
particularly common with warped quasars because these objects are some of the
brightest entities in the universe.
-
- When the light from a distant,
gravitationally-lensed object forms a perfect circle, it is known as an
Einstein ring, so named because Albert Einstein first predicted the lensing
effect with his theory of general relativity in 1915.
-
- However, in this case, the light has not
been perfectly lensed and the ring shape is mainly due to the duplication of
the quasar's bright spot.
-
- Einstein rings and other gravitationally
lensed objects can help reveal hidden information about distant objects. For
example, in 2014, researchers used the light from RX J1131-1231 to determine
how fast its supermassive black hole was spinning.
-
- The size and shape of gravitationally
lensed objects also allow scientists to calculate the mass of their lensing
galaxies. By comparing the value to the galaxy's emitted light, researchers can
calculate how much dark matter, a mysterious type of matter that doesn't react
with light but interacts gravitationally with normal matter, lies within these
galaxies. As a result, these warped light shows may be our best tool for
uncovering dark matter's secret identity.
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-
July 12, 2024 EINSTEIN'S
- ring of stars? 4526
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--------------------- --- Friday, July 12, 2024
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