gravitational lensing – Astronomy Now

Webb observes menagerie of lensed galaxies behind ‘El Gordo’ cluster

2 August 2023 Astronomy Now

Webb peers into a massive galaxy cluster and finds a stunning menagerie of gravitationally lensed background galaxies from earlier epochs, again revealing the power of the telescope’s infrared vision.

Supernova magnified 25 times and split into multiple images by galactic lens

19 June 2023 Astronomy Now

The Zwicky Transient Facility finds a supernova split into multiple images by the gravity of a foreground galaxy in a remarkable example of strong gravitational lensing.

Hubble Space Telescope probes a massive light-bending galaxy cluster

13 May 2023 Astronomy Now

Galaxy clusters serve as gravitational zoom lenses for the Hubble Space Telescope, magnifying the light from more remote background galaxies to shed light on the nature of such lenses and the distribution of dark matter.

Webb serves up baby pictures of galaxy cluster in infant cosmos

4 May 2023 Astronomy Now

In another startling discovery, the James Webb telescope has confirmed a galaxy cluster shining just 650 million years after the Big Bang.

Galaxy cluster warps space, magnifying more distant galaxies

19 May 2021 Astronomy Now

The combined gravity of a remote galaxy cluster warps the space around it and brings the distorted shapes of background galaxies into view.

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.