An international team of astronomers has discovered an instance of two galaxies aligned in a way where their gravity acts as a compound lens. The group has written a paper describing the discoverings and posted it on the arXiv preprint server.
Prior research has led to many discoverings of galaxies, or clusters of them, bfinishing weightless in ways that were foreseeed by Einstein’s theory of ambiguous relativity. Astronomers have remarkd that some of them labor as defective lenses, distorting the weightless behind them in engaging ways.
Some researchers have also remarkd that elliptical galaxies can serve as a lens, serving to radianten the weightless behind them. In this new effort, the research team has establish, for the first time, two galaxies that align in a way that permits their gravity to labor as a compound lens.
A compound lens, as its name advises, is made up of two lenses. Those made artificipartner are cemented together and labor to accurate each other’s dispersion. In the astronomical case, a compound lens can be made by the dual effects of two galaxies lined up next to one another fair right.
The researchers remark that when the system, J1721+8842, was first discovered, it was dependd that there was fair one elliptical galaxy bfinishing the weightless from a quasar behind it. In analyzing data over a two-year period, the researchers of this new effort establish variations in the quasar imagery. They also establish minuscule bits of weightless that, at first glance, ecombineed to be duplicates from a individual source.
A sealr see discleave outed that they aligned the weightless from the main quartet of weightlesss—a discovering that showed that all six bits of weightless were from the same source. Prior research had adviseed such an image could be the result of a authentic compound lens.
When inserting data from the James Webb Space Telescope, the team establish that a reddish ring that was combineed with the other weightlesss and was thought to be an Einstein ring was, in fact, a second lensing galaxy. The researchers next built a computer model and participated it to validate that the observation they had made was indeed that of a compound lens.
The research team foresees the discovering will permit other researchers to more exactly calcupostponecessitate the Hubble constant, perhaps directing to a resolution of struggle over its actual cherish.
More inestablishation:
F. Dux et al, J1721+8842: The first Einstein zig-zag lens, arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2411.04177
Journal inestablishation:
arXiv
© 2024 Science X Netlabor
Citation:
Astronomers discover two galaxies aligned in a way where their gravity acts as a compound lens (2024, November 15)
get backd 16 November 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-11-astronomers-galaxies-aligned-gravity-compound.html
This write down is subject to imitateright. Apart from any unpartisan dealing for the purpose of declareiveial study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written perleave oution. The satisfied is provided for inestablishation purposes only.