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    gravitational lensing tagged posts

    Hubble proves Einstein Correct on Galactic Scales

    June 21, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The gravitational lens from LRG 3-757 galaxy taken with the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

    The gravitational lens from LRG 3-757 galaxy taken with the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

    An international team of astronomers have made the most precise test of gravity outside our own solar system. By combining data taken with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, they show that gravity in this galaxy behaves as predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, confirming the theory’s validity on galactic scales.

    In 1915 Albert Einstein proposed his general theory of relativity (GR) to explain how gravity works. Since then GR has passed a series of high precision tests within the solar system, but there have been no precise tests of GR on large astronomical scales...

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    Cosmic Lens helps Hubble capture image of most Distant Star ever seen

    April 3, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Icarus, whose official name is MACS J1149+2223 Lensed Star 1, is the farthest individual star ever seen. It is only visible because it is being magnified by the gravity of a massive galaxy cluster, located about 5 billion light-years from Earth. Called MACS J1149+2223, this cluster, shown at left, sits between the Earth and the galaxy that contains the distant star. The team had been using Hubble to monitor a supernova in the far-off spiral galaxy when, in 2016, they spotted a point of light near the supernova that began to brighten. Even though the object subsequently became three times brighter in one month, the colors of the light coming from the object did not change. Analysis of these colors showed it was a blue supergiant star in the background galaxy whose magnification grew for several weeks due to an intervening object, probably a star, in the galaxy cluster. The panels at the right show the view in 2011, without Icarus visible, compared with the star's brightening in 2016. Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. Kelly, University of Minnesota

    Icarus, whose official name is MACS J1149+2223 Lensed Star 1, is the farthest individual star ever seen. It is only visible because it is being magnified by the gravity of a massive galaxy cluster, located about 5 billion light-years from Earth. Called MACS J1149+2223, this cluster, shown at left, sits between the Earth and the galaxy that contains the distant star. The team had been using Hubble to monitor a supernova in the far-off spiral galaxy when, in 2016, they spotted a point of light near the supernova that began to brighten. Even though the object subsequently became three times brighter in one month, the colors of the light coming from the object did not change...

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    Can strongly Lensed Type 1a Supernovae resolve cosmology’s biggest controversy?

    March 4, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Image - This composite of two astrophysics simulations shows a Type Ia supernova (purple disc) expanding over different microlensing magnification patterns (colored fields). Because individual stars in the lensing galaxy can significantly change the brightness of a lensed event regions of the supernova can experience varying amounts of brightening and dimming, which scientists believed would be a problem for cosmologists measuring time delays. Using detailed computer simulations at NERSC, astrophysicists showed that this would have a small effect on time-delay cosmology. (Credit: Danny Goldstein/UC Berkeley)

    This composite of two astrophysics simulations shows a Type Ia supernova (purple disc) expanding over different microlensing magnification patterns (colored fields). Because individual stars in the lensing galaxy can significantly change the brightness of a lensed event, regions of the supernova can experience varying amounts of brightening and dimming, which scientists believed would be a problem for cosmologists measuring time delays. Using detailed computer simulations at NERSC, astrophysicists showed that this would have a small effect on time-delay cosmology. (Credit: Danny Goldstein/UC Berkeley)

    Researchers think so – and they’re using NERSC supercomputers to find them...

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    Anatomy of a Cosmic Snake reveals Structure of Distant Galaxies

    November 15, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The Cosmic Snake is the image of a distant galaxy, deflected by a strong gravitational lens. Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, A.Cava

    The Cosmic Snake is the image of a distant galaxy, deflected by a strong gravitational lens. Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, A.Cava

    Asronomers have studied the image of a distant galaxy, 6 billion light-years away from us, warped and stretched by strong gravitational lensing into the shape of a cosmic snake. We have a fair understanding of the fundamental mechanisms that regulate star formation in galaxies, from the interstellar matter to the diffuse clouds distributed in space, whose gravitational contraction leads to the birth of stars within large stellar clusters. But observations of distant galaxies have questioned this picture, the size and mass of these distant stellar nurseries largely exceeding that of their local counterparts...

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