stargazer using the Hubble Space Telescope have spot an elliptical galax 9.6 - billion light eld from Earth that is so colossal , its gravity bends and magnifies the Inner Light from a wandflower behind it . The rare alignment is the most distant deterrent example of a lensing galaxy ever give away , and could yield insight into the formation of the early creation .
investigator lead by Texas A&M astronomer Kim - Vy Tran were study star formation in a distant galaxy clustering named IRC 0218 when they occur upon an strange sight . An old galaxy , whose star - making day were long since over , appeared to be teeming with young stars . “ I remember we had made a major misunderstanding with our watching , ” said Tran , but further psychoanalysis revealed that they had in fact stumbled upon a lensing galaxy – a adept cluster so monumental , it bend , amplifies and magnifies the light from objects behind it .
“ When you look more than nine billion years ago in the early cosmos , you do n’t expect to find this type of beetleweed - coltsfoot lensing at all , ” tell Tran , in a affirmation . She continue :
It ’s very difficult to see an alignment between two galaxy in the early universe . Imagine holding a magnifying glass nigh to you and then moving it much farther away . When you look through a magnifying glassful held at arm ’s length , the chances that you will see an enlarged aim are high-pitched . But if you move the magnify trash across the room , your chances of see the enlarge glass virtually perfectly aligned with another objective beyond it lessen .
According to lead source Kenneth Wong of Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics ( ASIAA ) , the lens provides astronomers a unique opportunity to study the dark - matter content of galax from the Universe ’s infancy . “ By compare our analysis of this lens of the eye galaxy to the more nearby lens system , we can start to understand how that blue - matter content has evolved over time . ”
The image at the top of this post are two inset , which depict the astronomic span as watch by Hubble , position against the larger cosmic linguistic context in which the lens was discovered . In the foreground of the inset on the left hand is the giant , lensing elliptical galaxy , seen as it appeared 9.6 billion age ago . Its scarlet light indicates the predomination of ancient stars . The dapple of blue in the inset image on the left is the light of the background galaxy , a lowly , spiral system turn up about 10.7 - billion light years from globe :
In the absence of the gravitative lensing provided by the foreground galaxy , the background galaxy might be too faint to observe . In the inset on the right wing , the foreground clustering has been hit , to show only the remote spiral galaxy . Here it is up close :
Pixel - tastic ! According to NASA , the dispirited chromaticity of the more distant coltsfoot is due to the radiance of young stars , and the blank glob of pixel at the upper right is likely a region of rapid hotshot establishment .
By quantify the volume of its lensing effect on the light from the extragalactic nebula behind it , Wong and his team were capable to determine that the foreground galaxy weighs rough 180 - billion time as much as our Sun . That ’s not as big as today ’s galax ( our own Milky Way is 3 - 4 times as massive ) , but it ’s immense for so far - flung a galaxy . What ’s more , most of the Milky Way ’s mass is made up of dark thing . The lensing Galax urceolata ? Not so much .
“ The unusually small amount of dark affair in this monumental , elliptical , lensing wandflower is very surprising , ” said study joint author Sherry Suyu . “ Other elliptical galaxies that are closer to us have much more disconsolate matter and have inventories of star that appear to be dissimilar from this top-notch - distant lensing galaxy . ”
The researchers ’ finding are published in the July 10th issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters . study more about this surprising discovery over atHubbleSite .
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