Posted on 07/05/2022 2:04:17 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: It is difficult to hide a galaxy behind a cluster of galaxies. The closer cluster's gravity will act like a huge lens, pulling images of the distant galaxy around the sides and greatly distorting them. This is just the case observed in the featured image recently re-processed image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The cluster GAL-CLUS-022058c is composed of many galaxies and is lensing the image of a yellow-red background galaxy into arcs seen around the image center. Dubbed a molten Einstein ring for its unusual shape, four images of the same background galaxy have been identified. Typically, a foreground galaxy cluster can only create such smooth arcs if most of its mass is smoothly distributed -- and therefore not concentrated in the cluster galaxies visible. Analyzing the positions of these gravitational arcs gives astronomers a method to estimate the dark matter distribution in galaxy clusters, as well as infer when the stars in these early galaxies began to form.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
This is a really good image to use the zoom feature described in post #1.
I wonder what that will look like when JWST takes a picture of it ....
If dark matter, which makes up 80% or more of the mass, is smoothly distributed across the cluster, why are the galaxies themselves not? But then, I’m not Einstein, and seeing is believing I guess.
Dark matter has never been detected. It’s just assumed to be there, else the current theories have to be thrown out. We know how well “scientific” authorities on Earth respond to having their prestige threatened. Galileo would tell you.
What an amazing picture….
The dark matter theory seems like a theory in search of evidence. It could be that there is just much more dust than current theories estimate.
Galileo and others. He was not the only one considered an outsider in his time. Even Einstein was once thought of as sort of a crack pot, before SR and GR were generally accepted.
They’re finding more evidence all the time, slowly, but they still don’t know what it is. Hence, it’s still “dark”. I’ve heard most of the hypotheses, I think, including the one that it’s not really there; just a misunderstanding of how gravity operates over large distances.
Maybe should rename it “The Crack Pipe Galaxy”.
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