Scientists captured a breath-taking image of an alignment between two galaxies that appeared as a ring-like structure.
The rarely-seen phenomenon is caused by gravitational lensing, and was first predicted by Albert Einstein in his theory of general relativity, the ALMA Observatory reported. The image is the highest resolution of its kind, and was captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).
Gravitational lensing occurs when galaxies bend light emitted from more distant galaxies, creating a magnified but distorted image. The recent image captured the galaxy SDP.81, and the light of another galaxy lines up so perfectly in this lensing scenario that it creates a stunning ring.
"Gravitational lensing is used in astronomy to study the very distant, very early Universe because it gives even our best telescopes an impressive boost in power," said ALMA Deputy Program Scientist Catherine Vlahakis. "With the astounding level of detail in these new ALMA images, astronomers will now be able to reassemble the information contained in the distorted image we see as a ring and produce a reconstruction of the true image of the distant galaxy."
SDP.81 is an active star-forming galaxy located about 12 billion light-years away, and is viewed at a time when the universe was only 15 percent of the age it is today.
"The exquisite amount of information contained in the ALMA images is incredibly important for our understanding of galaxies in the early Universe," said astronomer Jacqueline Hodge with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. "Astronomers use sophisticated computer programs to reconstruct lensed galaxies' true appearance. This unraveling of the bending of light done by the gravitational lens will allow us to study the actual shape and internal motion of this distant galaxy much more clearly than has been possible until now."
The findings were published recently in the Cornell University library.
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