{"id":2559,"date":"2008-01-11T19:30:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-11T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2008\/01\/11\/elusive-double-einstein-ring-o\/"},"modified":"2008-01-11T19:30:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-11T19:30:00","slug":"elusive-double-einstein-ring-o","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/11\/elusive-double-einstein-ring-o\/","title":{"rendered":"Elusive Double Einstein Ring Observed for the First Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"inset right\" alt=\"image.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/images\/doublering.jpg?w=250\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>An Einstein Ring is one of those freaky relativistic predictions that can&#8217;t possibly be true unless Einstein was right.  Well, Einstein Rings have been observed in the past, and now, we have a <em>double<\/em> Einstein Ring.  Doubly proving that Einstein was right!<!--more--><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spacetelescope.org\/images\/screen\/heic0803a.jpg\">Click here for a bigger picture of the amazing double Einstein ring.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>NASA&#8217;s Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a never-before-seen optical alignment in space: a pair of glowing rings, one nestled inside the other like a bull&#8217;s-eye pattern. The double-ring pattern is caused by the complex bending of light from two distant galaxies strung directly behind a foreground massive galaxy, like three beads on a string&#8230;.The ring was found by an international team of astronomers led by Raphael Gavazzi and Tommaso Treu of the University of California, Santa Barbara. &#8230; A paper has been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal.The phenomenon, called gravitational lensing, occurs when a massive galaxy in the foreground bends the light rays from a distant galaxy behind it, in much the same way as a magnifying glass would. When both galaxies are exactly lined up, the light forms a circle, called an &#8220;Einstein ring,&#8221; around the foreground galaxy. If another background galaxy lies precisely on the same sightline, a second, larger ring will appear.Because the odds of seeing such a special alignment are estimated to be 1 in 10,000, Treu says that they &#8220;hit the jackpot;&#8221; the odds are less than winning two consecutive bets on a single number at Roulette.&#8221;Such stunning cosmic coincidences reveal so much about nature. Dark matter is not hidden to lensing,&#8221; added Leonidas Moustakas of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. &#8220;The elegance of this lens is trumped only by the secrets of nature that it reveals.&#8221;The massive foreground galaxy is almost perfectly aligned in the sky with two background galaxies at different distances. The foreground galaxy is 3 billion light-years away. The inner ring and outer ring are comprised of multiple images of two galaxies at a distance of 6 billion and approximately 11 billion light-years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There is a lot more in the press release, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ia.ucsb.edu\/pa\/display.aspx?pkey=1708\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Einstein Ring is one of those freaky relativistic predictions that can&#8217;t possibly be true unless Einstein was right. Well, Einstein Rings have been observed in the past, and now, we have a double Einstein Ring. Doubly proving that Einstein was right!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[191],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-Fh","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}