Space Telescope Reveals Rare "Einstein Ring" Phenomenon With Startling Clarity

Astronomers from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid mission have captured an unprecedented view of a rare cosmic phenomenon—completely by chance, CNN’s Ashley Strickland reported.

Einstein rings occur when light from a distant galaxy bends around a foreground object, forming a glowing ring. I SA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, G. Anselmi, T. Li

The discovery comes from some of the earliest data collected by the Euclid telescope, which launched in July 2023 to study the dark universe—the parts of the cosmos that scientists cannot directly observe.

During the first few months, the telescope underwent calibration and instrument testing.

When test images were transmitted back to Earth, Euclid Archive Scientist Bruno Altieri noticed what appeared to be an Einstein ring. Einstein rings occur when light from a distant galaxy bends around a foreground object, forming a glowing ring.

This effect, named after Albert Einstein, was predicted by his general theory of relativity, which proposed that massive objects could bend and amplify light across the cosmos.

In 2023, Euclid initially captured an image of NGC 6505, a well-documented galaxy located about 590 million light-years from Earth. (A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, roughly 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers).) 

However, for the first time, Euclid’s highly sensitive instruments revealed a ring of light surrounding the galaxy.

This ring consists of distorted light from a previously unknown galaxy, located 4.42 billion light-years away. As the discovery is new, this distant galaxy has yet to be officially named.

Euclid’s ability to capture such detailed images highlights its potential to uncover more hidden features of the dark universe, furthering our understanding of gravitational lensing and cosmic structures.