"Breathtaking": ESA's Euclid space telescope finds perfect Einstein ring
Euclid has been working on a huge celestial atlas for almost a year. However, he had already made a spectacular discovery, as has now been revealed.
(Image: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by Tian Li)
ESA's Euclid space telescope has already sent a particularly impressive image of a perfect Einstein ring to Earth during its test phase. The Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) has now made this public and published the image. In the image of the galaxy with the designation NGC 6505, a circular ring of light can be clearly seen around its center. This comes from an unnamed galaxy that is hidden behind it. Its light is ideally distorted by gravity and this is how the ring is formed. The image is extraordinary because the galaxy in the foreground is comparatively close to us and the orientation of the ring is particularly beautiful, explains Conor O'Riordan from the MPA.
(Image:Â ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, T. Li/ESA)
Not only pretty, but also useful
Einstein rings are special gravitational lenses; not very many have been discovered so far. There are also Einstein crosses, in which the light of distant galaxies is distorted into a cross shape by massive ones in the foreground. For Bruno Altieri, who is in charge of the Euclid archive, the discovery of the perfect Einstein ring of NGC 6505 was a particular stroke of luck, "because I have been interested in gravitational lensing all my life". The object is not only extremely pretty, but also incredibly useful for studying the gravitational structures of the galaxy in the foreground, which bends the light to a certain extent, adds O'Riordan, who then led the analysis. This is presented in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
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Euclid was launched at the beginning of July 2023; the centerpiece is a high-resolution telescope equipped with two cameras – one for the visible wavelength range and one for the near-infrared spectrum. The devices will image the movements and shapes of galaxies and help to deduce the distance of galaxies. In this way, the ESA wants to take a look into the past of the universe and explore its development over the past ten billion years. The device captured the "breathtaking" Einstein Ring in September 2023 and the team sees "the amazing discovery" as proof that the ambitious mission is well on its way to "uncovering many more secrets".
(mho)
