Posted on 12/22/2011 7:55:08 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Explanation: What's large and blue and can wrap itself around an entire galaxy? A gravitational lens mirage. Pictured above, the gravity of a luminous red galaxy (LRG) has gravitationally distorted the light from a much more distant blue galaxy. More typically, such light bending results in two discernible images of the distant galaxy, but here the lens alignment is so precise that the background galaxy is distorted into a horseshoe -- a nearly complete ring. Since such a lensing effect was generally predicted in some detail by Albert Einstein over 70 years ago, rings like this are now known as Einstein Rings. Although LRG 3-757 was discovered in 2007 in data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the image shown above is a follow-up observation taken with the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3. Strong gravitational lenses like LRG 3-757 are more than oddities -- their multiple properties allow astronomers to determine the mass and dark matter content of the foreground galaxy lenses.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
Best Short Astronomy Videos: APOD editor to speak in New York City on Friday, January 6
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Wow. Just Wow.
I used to have an Einstein Ring, but I bought better detergent and my collars are clean now.
That is something to wrap your head around.
Open the Pod Bay door HAL!
Now....this is more like it! A photo I can really appreciate. Reminds me of what I saw when that kid knocked me out.
Whenever I see one of these photos against the backdrop of today’s politics I remember Dickens’ “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...”
Now, that is cool.
Visual proof that gravity bends light.
That looks like God’s eye. Since God created the Universe the scale would be about right. Which would give a person a hint of the size and power of our Creator.
Lovely!
I love these pictures! Thank You for posting them so faithfully.
Hal ?
That is a serious amount of gravity.
And a new wallpaper for the P.C.
Thanks SC.
...To our fellow citizens
Who, for love of truth
Take from their own wants
By taxes and gifts,
And now and then send forth
One of themselves
As dedicated servant,
To forward the search
Into the mysterious and marvelous simplicities
Of this strange and beautiful Universe, Our home.
—Dedication to ¨Gravitation¨, Misner, Thorne and Wheeler (1973)
;-{)
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