Thanks to the presence of a gravitational lens, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured five separate images of 2M1310-1714, a quasar located approximately 17 billion light-years away in the constellation of Virgo.
This Hubble image shows an Einstein ring formed by gravitationally lensed light from a distant quasar called 2M1310-1714. The color image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the infrared and optical parts of the spectrum. Three filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / T. Treu / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.
Albert Einstein predicted in his theory of general relativity that massive objects will deform the fabric of space itself.
When light passes one of these objects, such as massive galaxies or their groups, its path is changed slightly.
Called gravitational lensing, this effect is only visible in rare cases and only world’s best telescopes can observe the related phenomena.
“The central pair of galaxies in this image are genuinely two separate galaxies, which are located 3.8 billion light-years from Earth,” Hubble astronomers said.
“The four bright points circling them, and the fainter one in the very center, are actually five separate images of a single quasar, known as 2M1310-1714, an extremely luminous but distant object.”
An Einstein ring formed by gravitationally lensed light from 2M1310-1714. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / T. Treu / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.
“The reason behind this ‘seeing quintuple’ effect is a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing,” they said.
“Gravitational lensing occurs when a celestial object with an enormous amount of mass causes the fabric of space to warp such that the light traveling through that space from a distant object is bent and magnified sufficiently that humans here on Earth can observe multiple magnified images of the far-away source.”
“2M1310-1714 actually lies further away from Earth than the pair of galaxies.”
“The light from the quasar has been bent around the galaxy pair because of their enormous mass, giving the incredible appearance that the galaxy pair are surrounded by four quasars — whereas in reality, a single quasar lies far beyond them!”
