We couldn’t believe our eyes ever since the initial James Webb Space Telescope photos were made public in July. JWST offers so much, from the clear views of Jupiter to the most distant star yet discovered!
But Webb has now done it again. This time we get to enjoy an almost flawless Einstein ring located around 12 billion light-years. Read out below all the details and share your thoughts!
An Einstein Ring vs. the Most Powerful Space Telescope
As previously said, the James Webb Space Telescope has surpassed everyone’s expectations. Recent data reveals an almost flawless Einstein ring in all its glory, and we can’t help but stare!
Take a look below:
Thanks to an astronomy grad student (Spaceguy44 on Reddit), we can enjoy the picture. He used astropy to align and colorize the photos, after which he used GIMP for additional editing.
A new galaxy emerges
An Einstein ring develops when a giant galaxy in front of a distant galaxy magnifies it and wraps it into a nearly perfect circle, as Spaceguy44 describes on Reddit.
Moreover, that galaxy has been dubbed SPT-S J041839-4751.8, and it’s around 12 billion light-years away. But it gets better!
Spaceguy44 claims that if it weren’t for the Einstein ring, we wouldn’t be able to view this galaxy at all. So, besides being aesthetically pleasing, Einstein’s rings enable us to investigate such inaccessible galaxies. How helpful!
Why is it called the Einstein rings, anyway?
Einstein foresaw that phenomenon, which is known as gravitational lensing. The alignment of the distant galaxy, the nearby magnifying galaxy, and the observer – where the Webb telescope came in handy – is required for the effect to occur.
Spaceguy44 explains that the stem and base of a wine glass create an identical effect. And you can try to see it for yourself by using a book page, a glass, and see how the words zoomed in.