The space telescope finds a rare “Einstein Ring” of Light in the nearby galaxy – public radio Boise State

A rare ring of light around the galaxy of nearly 590 million light -years from Earth has been discovered by a space telescope that scientists are hoping to discover more space phenomena throughout the universe, the European Space Agency reported on Monday.

The Ring of Light, known as Einstein Ring, was discovered in September 2023 by EuclidA cosmic telescope of a six -year mission to outline space, watching billions of galaxies. The photos of Einstein’s ring show a bright ball light in the center with a bright, cloudy ring around it.

The ring is surrounding the NGC 6505, a galaxy that astronomers claim is nearby, although it is hundreds of millions of light years.

The Galaxy, NGC 6505, He himself is not new to scientists and has been studied since the 19th century, says Jacqueline McCliri, an assistant in physics at Northeast University. Einstein’s ring, which has never been seen around this galaxy, was suddenly due to Euclid’s high resolution and sensitivity.

“You would think that after generations of telescopes, they have been looking at this thing for a century and changing, we would understand everything you need to know about it correctly?” McCliri tells NPR. “With other previous generations, this Einstein ring was essentially drowned by the light of this great galaxy.”

Named of Albert Einstein, who predicts the bending of light through his relativity theory, the first known Einstein Ring was discovered in 1987. Several have been discovered over the decades, though it is not clear how much they exist.

ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, Image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, G. Anselmi, T. Li / European Space Agency

/ /

European Space Agency

Einstein ring is a ring of light around a shape of dark matter, galaxy or gaches of galaxies, says Mustafa IshakProfessor of Astrophysics at the University of Texas in Dallas. When the light of the galaxy bends as it moves along a massive object, such as another galaxy or gaches of galaxies and reaches the telescope, this perfect alignment of all three straight rings are visible to the observer.

The NGC 6505 is in line with another galaxy, which is 4.42 billion light -years and has never been observed and has no name, says ESA.

“It looks like a ring because the light is focused in this ring in the shape of a ring,” Ishak tells NPR.

They are not visible to the naked eye and can only be seen with a telescope like Euclid. The color of the ring is the same color of the galaxy, ranging from white, yellow, blue and red, astronomers say.

Einstein ring is also considered a strong gravitational lens model, says Xiaosheng HuangProfessor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of San Francisco. The gravitational lens is when a massive object distorts time and space, leading to the distortion and bending of light as it moves around the object.

“This effect can lead to several types of image configurations,” Huang told NPR about strong gravitational lenses, adding that Einstein’s ring is the most conventional.

The equalization that creates Einstein’s ring will remain for a while, which will allow astronomers to continue to study it, Ihak says. And telescopes like Euclid are likely to give scientists a better understanding of dark matter, invisible matter that has gravitational effects, says Huang. But McCliri hopes that this will lead to more “dramatic discoveries” and will give scientists to look into the mysteries of the universe.

“We will be able to study distant old galaxies from the beginning of the history of the universe with much better details and in a far larger number than we were able to contribute to that moment,” McCliri says.

Copyright 2025 NPR