Latest news with #EinsteinRing
Engadget
25-06-2025
- Science
- Engadget
NASA'S James Webb Space Telescope has captured its first direct image of an exoplanet
NASA'S James Webb Space Telescope has captured direct images of a planet outside of our solar system, which is the first time it has accomplished such a feat. This is a very big deal because exoplanets don't put out much light, so researchers typically discover new planets through indirect methods like keeping track of shadows as they pass across a host star. Webb, however, didn't have to do all that. It has directly captured images of a planet called TWA 7 b . Scientists believe the planet is around the mass of Saturn and is located 100 light years away from Earth. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the "Content and social-media partners" setting to do so. — NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) June 25, 2025 The planet is much further away from its star than Earth, so it has a wider orbital period that lasts several hundred years. The planetary system is thought to be around 6 million years old, so we are really getting a snapshot into the early stages of its development. Our sun is considered to be middle-aged and is around 4.6 billion years old. TWA 7 b is ten times smaller than any previous exoplanet to be directly observed with a telescope, according to The Guardian . Typically, planets of this size can't be seen by telescopes, as the light from the host star masks direct observation. The research team, led by Dr. Anne-Marie Lagrange, got around this by making a telescopic attachment that mimicked the results of a solar eclipse. This reduced much of the light emanating from the star to make it easier to observe surrounding objects. The process allowed the team to spot the planet, which appears as a bright source of light with a narrow ring of debris. Lagrange and her team do note that there's still a "very small chance" the images show a background galaxy, but the evidence "strongly points" to the source being a previously undiscovered planet. The first exoplanet was first discovered in 1992. Since that time, nearly 6,000 more have been spotted. Again, the vast majority of these have not been captured with direct imaging. This is just the latest stunning discovery by our good friend James Webb. It recently captured a cosmic phenomenon called an "Einstein Ring," which is when light from one galaxy is bent around the mass of another. Last year, the telescope found the most distant galaxy ever observed . If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
ESA's Euclid spacecraft spots 'stunning' rare Einstein Ring in far off galaxy
Feb. 10 (UPI) -- The European Space Agency on Monday said its Euclid telescope discovered its first "extremely rare" Einstein ring in a galaxy "not too far away" nearly 600 million light years from Earth. Euclid, the ESA spacecraft launched in July 2023 designed to observe deep space in the hope of unlocking the mysteries of the universe, spotted its first strong gravitational lens as it set about to construct the most precise 3D map ever created of the known universe. "Even from that first observation, I could see it, but after Euclid made more observations of the area, we could see a perfect Einstein ring," Bruno Altieri, the ESA's Euclid archive scientist. "For me, with a lifelong interest in gravitational lensing, that was amazing." The Einstein Ring, according to the Paris-based European Space Agency, is an "extremely rare phenomenon." However, this new ring discovered by Euclid has "unique characteristics," Massimo Meneghetti, team member and National Institute for Astrophysics researcher, wrote in a statement. This new discovery, however, "turned out to be hiding in plain sight in a galaxy not far away" called NGC 6505 some 590 million light-years from Earth which, ESA officials continued, was "a stone's throw away in cosmic terms." "It is truly rare to find a galaxy relatively close to us, like this one found in the NGC catalog (New Galaxy Catalog), one of the catalogs of nearby galaxies that acts as a strong gravitational lens," Meneghetti says. Due to Euclid's high-resolution instruments, officials said this was the first time that the ring of light surrounding its center was detected. Its background galaxy was measured at 4.42 billion light-years away, but its light has "been distorted by gravity" on its way to Earth. Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that light will bend around objects in space. But this find was described as "particularly special" due to it's close proximity to Earth. "An Einstein ring is an example of strong gravitational lensing," explained Conor O'Riordan, of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. It was located in a "well-known" galaxy first discovered in 1884. "All strong lenses are special, because they're so rare, and they're incredibly useful scientifically," added O'Riordan, also lead author of the first scientific paper to analyzing the ring. The ESA released a first set of five images from its Euclid space telescope November 2023 some four months after its launch. Its expected map out more than a third of the sky and will observe billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light years away. "Euclid is going to revolutionize the field, with all this data we've never had before," according to O'Riordan.
