Astronomers using NASA ’s Hubble Space Telescope may have blob the farthest cosmic magnifying glass yet . The powerful soberness from this massive elliptic galaxy magnifies the brightness level coming from a distant spiral Galax urceolata – breaking the previous “ lensing ” phonograph record by 200 million class .
gravitative lensing is a phenomenon where a foreground physical object magnifies , brightens , and distorts persona of more distant aim behind it that are typically too faint to see with telescopes . The enormous gravitative field of this grievous elliptical deflects the light clear through it , the way any opthalmic lense bends lighter to form an image .
you could see the giant oval as it appeared 9.6 billion years ago in the left enlarge image above . It capture its red coloring material from sometime stars ’ spark , and it ’s one of the undimmed members in a removed cluster of galax call IRC 0218 .
Also in that left gusset , the lighter - coloured blobs at the upper rightfield and lower left are the distorted , magnified shapes of the more remote spiral galaxy – locate 10.7 billion light - years from Earth . After subtract the oval-shaped heavyweight , you get the turbinate galax in the enlarged mental image above on the right . It appears blue because of the glow of young stars . ( The blank sphere is probable an area of maven formation . )
" When you look more than 9 billion twelvemonth ago in the early universe , you do n’t carry to find this type of coltsfoot - extragalactic nebula lensing at all , " saysKim - Vy Tran of Texas A&M Universityin anews liberation . " It ’s very difficult to see an alignment between two galaxies in the early population . ” Imagine count through a magnifying methamphetamine . Even if you hold it at branch ’s length , you ’ll still see an hypertrophied object . “ But if you move the magnifying meth across the elbow room , ” Tran explain , “ your probability of seeing the overdraw glass nearly perfectly aligned with another aim beyond it belittle . "
Tran and colleagues combined spectroscopic data from the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and Hubble to determine that the lighter - colored blobby feature – the blue , eyebrow - mould object next to a daub grim superman around the big elliptical – were two images of the same spiral galaxy .
From this fortune alignment , the team mensurate the elephantine galaxy ’s entire mass – including its amount of sour issue – by gauging the vividness of its lensing effects on the background galaxy ’s light . It count 180 billion time more than our sun .
Hundreds of lens of the eye galax are known , but almost all of them are relatively nearby . With such a distant crystalline lens “ we can determine about the dark - matter mental object of extragalactic nebula in the removed yesteryear … [ and ] how that sorry - matter cognitive content has evolved over time , ” study author Kenneth Wong ofAcademia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysicsin Taipeiexplains . As sinewy as this lensing galaxy is , it ’s skinny in terms of moody - affair content . It will probably keep on to uprise over the next 9 billion years as it cannibalize neighboring galaxies .
Theworkwas bring out in theAstrophysical Journal Lettersearlier this calendar month .
[ ViaHubbleSite ]
Image : NASA , ESA , K.-V. Tran ( Texas A&M University ) , and K. Wong ( Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics )
