Scientists have identified one of the largest and most complete Einstein rings ever

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September 25, 2021 01:44 GMT

The object was discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope in December 2020, but has only been examined in greater depth now.

A team of European astronomers used a previous dataset to study one of the largest and most complete Einstein rings ever discovered.

The “extremely strange and rare” astronomical phenomenon, found in the galaxy GAL-CLUS-022058s (the southern hemisphere constellation of Fornax, known as Furnace), was discovered in December 2020 by the NASA and European Space Agency’s Hubble Space Telescope. (European Space Agency).

“To derive the physical properties of that galaxy with a lens, you need a specific lens model. This model can only be obtained using the Hubble image,” to explain Anastasio Diaz Sanchez, from the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (Spain).

From this model, the scientists calculated the amplification factor, which is the effect of a gravitational lens. This made it possible to study the physical properties of the galaxy and, in particular, to prove that it is located in 9.4 billion light years from Earth.

“The discovery of the molecular gas, from which new stars are born, has given us the opportunity to calculate the redshift, revealing that we are indeed witnessing Galaxy so farNicholas Sulzinor, a student at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (Germany) and a member of the research team reported.

“Our research also showed that it is a standard star-forming galaxy (or main-sequence galaxy) at the height of star formation in the universe,” added Helmut Dannerbauer, of the Instituto Astrofísica de Canarias (Spain).