gravitational lensing – Astronomy Now

Relativity passes another test, this one beyond the Milky Way

22 June 2018 Astronomy Now

Putting general relativity to the test, astronomers compared the known gravity of a galaxy with the bending of spacetime needed to produce a spectacular ‘Einstein ring’ and found, once again, that Einstein was correct.

With luck, James Webb may spot first-generation stars

26 April 2018 Astronomy Now

With gravitational lensing, patience and a bit of luck, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope may be able to directly image some of the first stars to light up in the wake of the big bang birth of the universe.

Galaxies like grains of sand, courtesy of Planck

19 February 2018 Astronomy Now

The Hubble Space Telescope imaged a distant cluster of galaxies that was found by ESA’s Planck satellite, which detected distortions in the cosmic background radiation caused by the cluster’s gravity. Some five billion light years from Earth, the cluster’s members appear as a swarm of red-shifted galaxies, along with an arc of bluish light caused by gravitational lensing.

Gravitational lensing sets new magnification record

2 February 2018 Astronomy Now

A distant “quiescent” galaxy found using the Hubble Space Telescope and extreme magnification via gravitational lensing may shed light on how galaxies form and evolve.

NASA’s ‘Great Observatories’ team up to find magnified image of distant galaxy

17 January 2018 Astronomy Now

An intensive survey deep into the universe by NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes has yielded the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack: the farthest galaxy yet seen in an image that has been stretched and amplified by a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.

Cosmic snake pregnant with stars

3 December 2017 Astronomy Now

This Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the Cosmic Snake, a distant galaxy peppered with clumpy regions of intense star formation that appear warped by the effect of gravitational lensing. This giant arc-like galaxy is actually behind the huge galaxy cluster MACSJ1206.2-0847, but thanks to the cluster’s gravity, we can see it from Earth.

Cosmic magnifying-glass effect captures Universe’s brightest galaxies

7 June 2017 Astronomy Now

Boosted by natural magnifying lenses in space, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured unique close-up views of the Universe’s brightest infrared galaxies, which are as much as 10,000 times more luminous than our Milky Way.

A lot of galaxies need guarding in this Hubble view

8 May 2017 Astronomy Now

Like the quirky characters in the upcoming film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has some amazing superpowers, specifically when it comes to observing galaxies across time and space. One stunning example is galaxy cluster Abell 370, which contains a vast assortment of several hundred galaxies tied together by the mutual pull of gravity.

Keck Observatory captures rare high-resolution images of exploded star

26 April 2017 Astronomy Now

Scientists will now be able to measure how fast the universe is truly expanding with the kind of precision not possible before. This, after an international team of astronomers led by Stockholm University, Sweden, captured four distinct images of a gravitationally lensed Type Ia supernova, named iPTF16geu.

Large number of dwarf galaxies discovered in the early universe

25 November 2016 Astronomy Now

Researchers have found a large population of distant dwarf galaxies that could reveal important details about a productive period of star formation in the universe billions of years ago. It is believed that dwarf galaxies played a significant role during the so-called reionisation era in transforming the dark early universe into one that is bright, ionised and transparent.