Einstein Cross

August 5, 2023

Astronomers have discovered a stunning, rare example of an “Einstein cross” splitting and magnifying light from the far depths of the universe.
- The pattern was first predicted by Albert Einstein in 1915.
It occurs when the curvature of space-time around a massive foreground object (like a galaxy) splits the light behind it into four, like the points of a cross.
In this case the background light likely comes from a quasar (more than 11.179 billion light-years away), a young galaxy whose supermassive black hole at its core gobbles up enormous amounts of matter and blasts out enough radiation to shine more than a trillion times more brightly than the brightest stars.
- Gravitational Lensing occurs when a massive celestial body, such as a galaxy cluster, causes a sufficient curvature of space-time for the path of light around it to be visibly bent, as if by a lens.
- An important consequence of this lensing distortion is magnification, allowing us to observe objects that would otherwise be too far away and too faint to be seen.
Earth, the lensing galaxy (about 5.998 billion light-years away) and the quasar have aligned to perfectly duplicate the quasar’s light, arranging them along a so-called Einstein ring.
- This gravitational lens was first discovered in 2021.