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  • Astronomy Picture of the Day -- A Horseshoe Einstein Ring from Hubble

    12/22/2011 7:55:08 AM PST · by SunkenCiv · 18 replies
    NASA ^ | December 21, 2011 | (see photo credit)
    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...