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    gravitational lensing tagged posts

    One of the Brightest Galaxies ever discovered

    July 16, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The multiple images of the discovered galaxy are indicated by white arrows (bottom right shows the scale of the image in seconds of arc). Credit: Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

    The multiple images of the discovered galaxy are indicated by white arrows (bottom right shows the scale of the image in seconds of arc). Credit: Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

     
    Using gravitational lensing, a team of scientists from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) has discovered a very distant galaxy, some 10 thousand million light years away, about a thousand times brighter than the Milky Way. It is the brightest of the submillimetre galaxies, called this because of their very strong emissionin the far infrared. To measure it they used the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma).
     
    “Thanks to the gravitational lens” notes Anastasio Díaz Sánchez, a researcher at the UPCT and first author of the article ” produ...
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    Massive Dead Disk Galaxy Challenges Theories of Galaxy Evolution

    June 22, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This artist's concept shows what the young, dead, disk galaxy MACS2129-1, right, would look like when compared with the Milky Way galaxy, left. Although three times as massive as the Milky Way, it is only half the size. MACS2129-1 is also spinning more than twice as fast as the Milky Way. Note that regions of Milky Way are blue from bursts of star formation, while the young, dead galaxy is yellow, signifying an older star population and no new star birth. Credit: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levy (STScI)

    This artist’s concept shows what the young, dead, disk galaxy MACS2129-1, right, would look like when compared with the Milky Way galaxy, left. Although three times as massive as the Milky Way, it is only half the size. MACS2129-1 is also spinning more than twice as fast as the Milky Way. Note that regions of Milky Way are blue from bursts of star formation, while the young, dead galaxy is yellow, signifying an older star population and no new star birth. Credit: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levy (STScI)

    By combining the power of a “natural lens” in space with the capability of Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers made a surprising discovery – the first example of a compact yet massive, fast-spinning, disk-shaped galaxy that stopped making stars only a few billion years after the big bang...

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    Cosmic magnifying-glass effect captures universe’s brightest galaxies

    June 7, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    These six Hubble Space Telescope images reveal a jumble of misshapen-looking galaxies punctuated by exotic patterns such as arcs, streaks, and smeared rings. These unusual features are the stretched shapes of the universe's brightest infrared galaxies that are boosted by natural cosmic magnifying lenses. Some of the oddball shapes also may have been produced by spectacular collisions between distant, massive galaxies. The faraway galaxies are as much as 10,000 times more luminous than our Milky Way. The galaxies existed between 8 billion and 11.5 billion years ago. Credits: NASA, ESA, and J. Lowenthal (Smith College)

    These six Hubble Space Telescope images reveal a jumble of misshapen-looking galaxies punctuated by exotic patterns such as arcs, streaks, and smeared rings. These unusual features are the stretched shapes of the universe’s brightest infrared galaxies that are boosted by natural cosmic magnifying lenses. Some of the oddball shapes also may have been produced by spectacular collisions between distant, massive galaxies. The faraway galaxies are as much as 10,000 times more luminous than our Milky Way. The galaxies existed between 8 billion and 11.5 billion years ago. Credits: NASA, ESA, and J. Lowenthal (Smith College)

     
    Boosted by natural magnifying lenses in space, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured unique close-up views of the universe’s brightest infrared galaxies, which ...
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    First ‘Image’ of a Dark Matter Web that Connects Galaxies

    April 12, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Dark matter filaments bridge the space between galaxies in this false colour map. The locations of bright galaxies are shown by the white regions and the presence of a dark matter filament bridging the galaxies is shown in red. Credit: S. Epps & M. Hudson / University of Waterloo

    Dark matter filaments bridge the space between galaxies in this false colour map. The locations of bright galaxies are shown by the white regions and the presence of a dark matter filament bridging the galaxies is shown in red. Credit: S. Epps & M. Hudson / University of Waterloo

    Researchers at the University of Waterloo have been able to capture the first composite image of a dark matter bridge that connects galaxies together. The composite image, which combines a number of individual images, confirms predictions that galaxies across the universe are tied together through a cosmic web connected by dark matter that has until now remained unobservable...

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