Hubble Finds Double Einstein Ring

Einstein Duble brings us news that astronomers using the Hubble Telescope have discovered an extremely rare double Einstein Ring. Occasionally, galaxies or other bright objects are located in such a way that they are behind another galaxy when viewed from Earth. When light from the further galaxy passes a sufficiently massive closer galaxy, the path of the light is bent inward from all sides, creating a "ring" effect. In this case, not one, but two galaxies are directly behind the foreground galaxy, so the gravitational lens produces two distinct rings. Quoting Presscue: "The distribution of dark matter in the foreground galaxies that is warping space to create the gravitational lens can be precisely mapped. In addition, the geometry of the two Einstein rings allowed the team to measure the mass of the middle galaxy precisely to be a value of 1 billion solar masses. The team reports that this is the first measurement of the mass of a dwarf galaxy at cosmological distance (redshift of z=0.6)."

Who said Hubble was a waste of money?

[mastershake_phd (1050150)]

This is a prime example of the kind of useful knowledge that can be gained with projects like Hubble.

Re:Who said Hubble was a waste of money?

[pilgrim23 (716938)]

Proving Einstein's theory was always been about getting a little behind as it were. The solar eclipse of May 29,1919 was the first confirmation of this. And, this new discovery is much like the 191 observation only writ large, one might say glactic large.

Re:Who said Hubble was a waste of money?

[caramelcarrot (778148)]

Given that they are only vastly different scales, it is important - there is still uncertainty as to how gravity acts on extremely large galactic scales.

Re:Who said Hubble was a waste of money?

[by Anonymous Coward]

If you're truly Libertarian, Hubble is exactly the sort of thing you'd be against having the government fund.

C'mon, homefry. Walk the walk if you're gonna talk the talk.

Re:Who said Hubble was a waste of money?

[mastershake_phd (1050150)]

If you're truly Libertarian, Hubble is exactly the sort of thing you'd be against having the government fund.

C'mon, homefry. Walk the walk if you're gonna talk the talk.

Some Libertarians might be against funding things like Hubble. I personally am more concerned with personal freedom, and a balanced budget. Private industry isn't going to do certain things, Hubble is a prime example. The last thing this country needs to do is cut scientific research.

Re:

[porpnorber (851345)]

Personal freedom, sound economic policy, measured intervention in things that won't look after themselves - isn't this what we used to call 'Liberalism'? All the Libertarians I have encountered labour under the delusion that they are universal experts and that nobody but them (least of all people with actual domain-specific training!) should be doing any resource allocation. They don't want to fund street repairs - in case someone else uses tarmac they helped pay for - let alone science. Certainly a total f

Re:

[mi (197448)]

Personal freedom, sound economic policy, measured intervention in things that won't look after themselves - isn't this what we used to call 'Liberalism'?

Ha-ha... Those are universal values. The political distinction depends on what you call "personal freedom", what is sound economic policy, how you measure the intervention, and which things you identify as incapable of "looking after themselves".

"Liberalism" in America tends to consider free health care (at someone else's expense) an inalienable right,

Re:I agree, but...

[SQLGuru (980662)]

the extreme sort are the most noisy

The same could be said of those of any persuasion......(political, religious, etc.)

Layne

Re:

[sconeu (64226)]

Libertarians run the gamut of the libertarian spectrum, just as Dems and GOP'ers run the gamut of the so-called liberal and conservative spectrums.

Re:Who said Hubble was a waste of money?

[hyfe (641811)]

If you're truly Libertarian, Hubble is exactly the sort of thing you'd be against having the government fund.

Being against spending money on a project doesn't mean you're not allowed to acknowledge its positive sides.

Seriously, I hate this sort of thing. Any proposal has good and bad sides. When you're making a decision you count them and weigh them against eachother. Then you make a decision. Obviously, he values 'really free market' really highly, but that doesn't mean he's not allowed to acknowledge the cases when there are more cons to his approach than usual.

Acknowledging arguments and still making a decision is a sign of intelligence. Trying to force somebody else to make false choices, or attributing false opinions to them is stupid.. and way too bloody common.

Which part of the knowledge is useful?

[patio11 (857072)]

Seriously, I'm not being hostile with this question. Is your life better for knowing the precise mass of a galaxy which no human will ever visit? I could go out and mass a stone in my back yard rather precisely with a calibrated instrument right now -- that would advance The Sum Of Human Knowledge, insofar as nobody had ever determined the approximate mass of that particular rock before -- but is that knowledge *useful*?

Re:Which part of the knowledge is useful?

[IndustrialComplex (975015)]

The measured mass of a galaxy useful? On its own, maybe or maybe not. Yet through this fortunate alignment we were given the chance to get information that, for lack of a better word, helps us 'calibrate' our astronomical tools.

The universe is understood by using phenomenae like this to test our theories and provide a sort of astronomical 'yard stick' by which we can measure other objects. Objects that without this yard stick would be less well understood. One discovery is built upon another until, one by one, they form the sum of our understanding.

So why not go out and measure the mass of that little rock in your backyard? Wouldn't it be amazing to discover that it had a density of 19.3 g/mL?

Re:Which part of the knowledge is useful?

[Martian_Kyo (1161137)]

I am sure some people wondered in 1600s 'why is that newton guy researching gravity he is such a fool, I know if i drop an apple it falls. What does it matter how fast it falls, that won't help my crops grow.'
There is no useless knowledge. There is knowledge we don't know how to use yet but no useless knowledge. Time will show, determining mass of a galaxy might turn out to be an essential calculation 300 years from now on, given civilization continues to evolve until then.

And to them, we are the ring

[IdahoEv (195056)]

One of the cool implications becomes clear if you realize this means our galaxy is the 4th galaxy in a line with these three. To someone standing on a planet in that backmost galaxy, 11B Ly away:
    * The one that's the "foreground galaxy" to us would be the inner ring.
    * The one that's the "first ring" to us would be the foreground galaxy for them and ...
    * The Milky Way would appear as the outer ring!

Re:And to them, we are the ring

[Pedrito (94783)]

One of the cool implications becomes clear if you realize this means our galaxy is the 4th galaxy in a line with these three. To someone standing on a planet in that backmost galaxy, 11B Ly away:

        * The one that's the "foreground galaxy" to us would be the inner ring.

        * The one that's the "first ring" to us would be the foreground galaxy for them and ...

        * The Milky Way would appear as the outer ring!

Actually, that's not the case. I'll give you a hint. The reason is because of something the guy these rings are named after, figured out. These galaxies aren't aligned. They just look that way from our perspective. From the other direction, it's extremely unlikely these 4 galaxies ever aligned, as odd as that sounds.

Re:

[owlstead (636356)]

Indeed, there aren't aligned. Which won't defer an idiot astrologer to make some prediction over the event of course.

Re:

[Rothron the Wise (171030)]

If the galaxies look aligned from our perspective, they will look aligned from theirs. The inverse path
of the light will be exactly the same since the path is dictated by the perturbation of spacetime.

You forgot about time

[rewt66 (738525)]

These things line up in space-time as follows: Galaxy 1 is on the line 11 billion years ago, galaxy 2 is on the line 6 billion years ago, galaxy 3 is on the line 3 billion years ago, and the Milky Way is on the line right now.

This does not mean that the reverse is true. It does not mean that there is a line that the Milky Way was on 11 billion years ago, and galaxy 3 was on 8 billion years ago, and galaxy 2 was on 5 billion years ago, and galaxy 3 is on now. Why not? Because galaxies move.

Still, even if not technically correct, it was a really awesome thought by the OP...

You forgot about mass too

[Loki P (1170771)]

And the other problem is the masses of all the galaxies are different. The dwarf galaxy wouldn't act as a lens for them in the same way that the massive galaxy does for us.

Re:

[Tablizer (95088)]

These things line up in space-time as follows: .... This does not mean that the reverse is true. It does not mean that there is a line that the Milky Way was on 11 billion years ago, and galaxy 3 was on 8 billion years ago, and galaxy 2 was on 5 billion years ago, and galaxy 3 is on now. Why not? Because galaxies move.

The communications delay is gonna make online gaming with those guys a bit cumbersome.
       

Re:You forgot about time

[TapeCutter (624760)]

"It would be a line at the reverse angle to the hypothetical centre of the big bang."

We are at "hypothetical centre of the big bang", as is everything else.

Re:

[niktemadur (793971)]

Re:And to them, we are the ring (Score:0, Troll)

If the galaxies look aligned from our perspective, they will look aligned from theirs. The inverse path
of the light will be exactly the same since the path is dictated by the perturbation of spacetime.

I fail to see how this might be modded Troll. As for the statement, however, it doesn't work both ways - An Einstein Ring or Einstein Cross is not a discreet feature in space, it's an event similar in principle as an eclipse or occultation, and just as ephemeral

Re:

[porpnorber (851345)]

In your terminology, is there any circumstance under which objects in relative motion can be said to be 'aligned'? While I agree that relativistically speaking alignment isn't generally symmetric, I would have thought that this was exactly the situation in which one would have used the word - despite their limited speed, photon paths are the best 'lines' we have.

So... there is a God

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

And (s)he's got a really big ruler!

Re:

[Nimey (114278)]

...and he's about to drop trou and compare with the other deities.

Extemely Rare?

[tomhath (637240)]

It seems to me that there must be lots of Double Einstein Rings out there, probably millions of them. We're just not standing in the right place to seem most of them.

Not as amazing..

[MegaMahr (788652)]

As the double ring they found around Uranus [nationalgeographic.com]

Re:Not as amazing..

[jamesh (87723)]

You just passed up a golden opportunity to post a goatse link... the universe will never forgive you!

Whew!

[mapmaker (140036)]

I was afraid it was a trick to make me click on a link to goatse.cx guy.

Would you please take the ECW off the SciFi Chan..

[edwardpickman (965122)]

My first thought was they filmed intergalactic wrestling with the Hubble.

Halo?

[ticklemeozmo (595926)]

<dreamy>It's real??</dreamy>

Obligatory Futurama

[numbware (691928)]

Brannigan: "What the hell is that thing?"

Kif: "It appears to be the mothership"

Brannigan: "Then what did we just blow up?"

Kif: "The Hubble Telescope"

non-slashdotted hubble double ring article(w/pics)

[hxnwix (652290)]

Another article on this double ring find. [spacetelescope.org]

Einstein comment

[dangitman (862676)]

"Ah, so that's where I left those."

Ba dum bum

[Dachannien (617929)]

Additionally, the astronomers' significant others are annoyed at them for ruining the coffee table by not putting Eincoasters under their Einsteins.

Apologies to Macbeth

[InterGuru (50986)]

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble
Hubble finds an Einstein double

Give a shivering man a lit match and it will warm him for a few minutes.
Set him on fire and it will keep him warm for the rest of his life.

Duble?

[ylikone (589264)]

Who is this Duble brings us news of hubble finding double?

odds of this

[v1 (525388)]

for this to occur requires four galaxies to be very close to being colinear, and we have to be in one of the endpoints. Looking at the picture though there are several galaxies visible so I suppose they have quite a few to look at for this. I wonder just how rare it is? As in, is this the first one discovered? I'd asume if there were any other known double E rings it would have been mentioned in TFA. Hard to say how rare something is when you only have one of them to go by.

Re:

[v1 (525388)]

The article mentions "Einstein Ring" but that's just the visual effect. The actual gravitational lens pair is a "Solan Lens", and was found by a group looking for the single lensing pair variety. http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0511453 [arxiv.org] . Looks like they've found quite a few of the regular ones so far. I suppose you'd call this find a "double Solan Lens"?

Propaganda

[Jane Q. Public (1010737)]

Quote: "The distribution of dark matter in the foreground galaxies that is warping space to create the gravitational lens can be precisely mapped." Really? How can we "precisely map" something that we have never even shown positively to exist yet? The distribution of gravity could be caused my a number of things other than "dark matter". Gravitational disturbance by itself is not evidence for dark matter, any more than it supports at least several other hypotheses.

Re:Propaganda

[rush22 (772737)]

"The distribution of dark matter in the foreground galaxies that is warping space to create the gravitational lens can be precisely mapped." Really? How can we "precisely map" something that we have never even shown positively to exist yet? The distribution of gravity could be caused my a number of things other than "dark matter". Gravitational disturbance by itself is not evidence for dark matter, any more than it supports at least several other hypotheses.

Yes it is kind of like propaganda to assume dark matter theory is right, but that's the best theory there is. "Dark matter" is just a name for "whatever causes these observations." Whatever it is looks and acts like a gravitational field. Mass produces a gravitational field, so it's assumed to there's some sort of invisible mass, some sort of "dark matter." And they can still "precisely map" the gravitational field, regardless of what is causing it.

And unless you know something physicists don't know, there's not a "number of things" that could cause a gravitational field like that. Interestingly, there is another theory, ether theory [nationalgeographic.com], but even the physicist who came up with it says: "We're offering an alternative to the dark matter theory--we're not saying it's wrong. If I had to bet today on which of these theories was correct, I might bet on dark matter."

Re:

[geekoid (135745)]

"Wheres my flying car though?"

They're called 'airplanes' and we even have a place to park them called 'airports'

Re:Yay Hubble

[stoolpigeon (454276)]

That upgrade is on hold. The problems that knocked the latest Atlantis mission back into February have jacked up the schedule. So it was planned for August but now it will be later [reuters.com]. I would think that with eol for the shuttle and hubble both rapidly approaching - any more problems or serious delays and it could get knocked from on hold to canceled.

Re:

[JeremyR (6924)]

Yeah, you have to wonder how "precise" a measurement is when it comes out to a nice round number :-)

Re:Precise

[GaryPatterson (852699)]

There's a great story about the first person to accurately measure the height of Mount Everest, whose name escapes me at the moment.

His calculations came out to precisely 29,000 feet. Thinking no-one would believe such a round number, he added two feet to make 29,002 feet but was greatly annoyed by the whole thing.

Later it was more accurately measured at 29,029 feet (going from memory here) using lasers or something.

Re:

[osu-neko (2604)]

There's a great story about the first person to accurately measure the height of Mount Everest, whose name escapes me at the moment.

Sir Andrew Scott Waugh. He also gave the mountain its English name.

Re:

[GaryPatterson (852699)]

Hey, thanks for turning out! Nice to hear from another fan. Why not apply for one of my signed photos, or join my fan club?

Re:Here come's the PR Blitz

[The Master Control P (655590)]

Don't worry, we can pay for the whole thing by leaving Iraq one or two days earlier. And plus, if you look at it from the financial angle, a space-industrial complex is just as good of an excuse for corporate welfare handouts as the military-industrial complex. The only difference is that if we spent $300 Billion a year on science, we'd probably get something good for humanity out of it.

It's sad that spending money to unravel the secrets of the universe is sneered at (see parent) while large numbers of people and entire news networks (not necessarily including parent) champion spending trillions of dollars to keep poking the middle east hornet's nest (And apparently think that if we keep poking, the hornets will get tired and give up).

Re:

[flyingfsck (986395)]

My invisible red dragon can blow bigger smoke rings than your invisible red dragon...

Re:

[Hatta (162192)]

Light always travels in straight lines. Or to put it another way, light always travels the shortest path from A to B. Or to put it another way, light always travels every path from A to B, but they all cancel each other out except the shortest path. (read Feynman's QED for more) So it can't be curving the light, because that would make the path longer.