Euclid: Telescope captures image of rare Einstein ring in space
What is the Euclid telescope?
The Euclid telescope was launched in July 2023.It's a European Space Agency (ESA) mission studying what scientists call 'the dark universe'.It will spend six years taking pictures of space and creating a 3D map of galaxies formed around 10 billion years ago.
What is an Einstein ring?
The telescope snapped a picture of NGC 6505, a galaxy which is one of our closest neighbours in the cosmos - even though it's 500 million lightyears away.Around it, you can see an almost perfect circle of light.This circle is an Einstein ring, something scientists find very exciting as they help prove Einstein's theory of relativity.This was a series of famous equations Albert Einstein presented in 1915, which theorised that light bends around massive objects in space.When this happens, the rings act as big lenses, through which scientists can see light from galaxies that would otherwise be difficult to spot.
Conor O'Riordan, of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany and lead author of the first scientific paper analysing the ring, said: "An Einstein ring is an example of strong gravitational lensing."All strong lenses are special, because they're so rare, and they're incredibly useful scientifically."This one is particularly special, because it's so close to Earth and the alignment makes it very beautiful."
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