Hubble Telescope Discovers a Light-Bending 'Einstein Ring' In Space (space.com) 71
Space.com reports of the Hubble Space Telescope's discovery of a light-bending "Einstein Ring" in space: The perfect circle surrounding a galaxy cluster in a new Hubble Space Telescope image is a visual indicator of the huge masses that are bending time and space in that region. The galaxy cluster, called SDSS J0146-0929, features hundreds of individual galaxies all bound together by gravity. There's so much mass in this region that the cluster is distorting light from objects behind it. This phenomenon is called an Einstein ring. The ring is created as the light that comes from distant objects, like galaxies, passes by "an extremely large mass, like this galaxy cluster," NASA said in a statement. "In this image, the light from a background galaxy is diverted and distorted around the massive intervening cluster and forced to travel along many different light paths toward Earth, making it seem as though the galaxy is in several places at once." The ring is named after Albert Einstein, who wrote his theory of general relativity in the early 1900s. In it, he suggested that a massive object would warp space and time. This process is known today as a gravitational lens. When the most massive galaxies and galaxy clusters get in line with a more distant object, they produce an Einstein ring -- a type of gravitational lens.
The Einstein Ring is really amazing (Score:4, Interesting)
But, whenever I see these Hubble deep space images, I am still blown away just looking at all the galaxies in the photo.
Douglas Adams nailed it.
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Douglas Adams nailed it.
Though, our local pharmacy closed down, so for us, it's not peanuts for us anymore...
That's why I love astronomy! (Score:1)
How is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to flame or anything - I'm honestly asking - but haven't we discovered already hundreds of gravitational lensed galaxies already? What's different about this one?
Re:How is this news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How is this news? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How is this news? (Score:4, Interesting)
There are quintillions of galaxies in the observable universe, and only "hundreds" of gravitationally lensed galaxies, all of which are the result of (literally) astronomical coincidence.
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So are his teeth.
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Uh, no. (Score:3)
Sorry. As cool as your teeth are, gravitationally lensed galaxies are SO MUCH MORE AWESOME.
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Not a perfect circle (Score:1)
It is not a perfect circle - not even close. To make a perfectly circular Einstein ring would require the large mass to be at a singularity, with no other mass nearby, and no mass between the ring and the observer, to further perturb the bending light (from the observer's frame of reference).
Problem is, the mass that is creating the ring is not a singularity, so light is not bent uniformly around it, and the "circle" is not perfect.
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"...and the circle is not perfect."
No such thing as a perfect circle anywhere, except maybe in just the math itself - and pi goes on & on...
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"...and the circle is not perfect."
No such thing as a perfect circle anywhere, except maybe in just the math itself - and pi goes on & on...
I've been called a perfect asshole from time to tie. Does that count?
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Isn't that more like a *
Only one asshole I know of looks like a O
Pebble in water? (Score:2)
"...and the circle is not perfect."
No such thing as a perfect circle anywhere, except maybe in just the math itself - and pi goes on & on...
Drop a pebble into a calm pool of water?
(I commented to my physics professor once that primitive humans see lines everywhere, but never circles. This is what he responded with.)
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If you had grown up outside of Seattle, you might have also thought about "the sun" and "the moon" as examples of circular things primitives could experience.
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>> I commented to my physics professor once that primitive humans see lines everywhere, but never circles
If you had grown up outside of Seattle, you might have also thought about "the sun" and "the moon" as examples of circular things primitives could experience.
Oblate spheroids [like the Sun] can only be circles from certain points of vantage.
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The human pupil is pretty circular, isn't it?
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No such thing as a perfect circle anywhere, except maybe in just the math itself - and pi goes on & on...
Profile of a neutron star?
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Maybe not perfect all the time.
Why this one? (Score:3)
reminder (Score:1)
reminder for me to don't take shit too seriously as it relates to the cosmos, it really is small potatoes.
happy Friday!
A ring? (Score:2)
Was there any sign of the protomolecule? :o
Like the rest of them (Score:2)
"The galaxy cluster, called SDSS J0146-0929, features hundreds of individual galaxies all bound together by gravity."
Not to be picky, but all the other trillions of galaxies are also bound together by gravity, it's sort of a 'thing' that all galaxies have.
Galactic Lens Flare (Score:2)
I dunno - are they sure JJ Abrams was not involved in taking the photograph?
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Not necessarily gravitational (Score:2)
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You're completely whitewashing the history of gravitational lensing. I've reviewed the actual history of lensing claims in former Slashdot posts. For example, here is a quote by one of the astronomers who discovered the first lens:
Notice the obvious implication: No alternative infere
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Tell yah what, my new theory is the universe came into being when my pet 6 foot tall invisible rabbit shit it out. Guess what... that has as much "science" behind it as the electric universe shit. Actually, as electric universe made som
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Re: "... and requires us to throw away the last 100 years of progress ..."
This is really the crux of the debate: You view cosmology, the planetary sciences and astrophysics as functioning domains of science devoid of any persistent mysteries even as the scientists themselves admit the problems ...
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"At best, the 'electric universe' is a solution in search of a problem; it seeks to explain things we already understand very well through gravity, plasma and nuclear physics, and the like," said astronomer Phil Plait, who runs the blog Bad Astronomy at Slate. "At worst it's sheer crackpottery like homeopathy and astrology, making claims clearly contradicted by the evidence."
And here's part of the con....
One hundred seventy-five people donate $1,905 per month to the Thunderbolts Project Patreon campaign for video production.
"We know stars generate energy through nuclear fusion, not plasma discharge; we know craters are formed from asteroid and comet impacts, not huge electric arcs; we absolutely know that special and general relativity work, despite some EU proponents' claims," said Plait, who has tangled with EU commenters a time or two. "From what I've seen, most EU claims are on the cranky end of [the] scale. That's why most astronomers ignore it: No evidence for it, tons of evidence against it, and no support mathematically or physically."
http://dealingwithcreationismi... [blogspot.com]
Electric universe is a con. Are you a conman, or just a stupid rube?
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The Electric Universe apparently sins for trying to address the unresolved problems of mainstream science. If your preferred set of ideas is so great, then why are theorists struggling to apply these models to explain so many basic observations? The mainstream offers us ever more complex, less empirical, more hypothetical ideas as answers, while positioning the application of laboratory observations of the only other candidate force as somehow out-of-bounds. This is the definition of an anti-science appr
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I get it, physics is hard... and stupid people who c
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So, what you're saying -- repeatedly -- is that since the math of Relativity works, then there can be no other explanation. I mean, just stunning.
The irony is that Herbert Dingle, history's most outspoken critic of Relativity, eloquently argued against just this claim back in 1972 in his famous Science at the Crossroads. The following quote comes from pages 15 - 18 [hasslberger.com]:
Not just very large masses bend light! (Score:2)
All mass, without any exceptions bend light, not just very large masses.
However, we don't normally notice these effects unless the mass is very large.
At very tiny scales, like single protons, quantum and other effects dominate -- but the tiny mass does effect light.
I suspect that masses greater than that of Jupiter are required, before we can easily notice a mass bending light. Here I'd love to be wrong!