Einstein ring spotted around galaxy a ‘mere’ 500 million light years away Scientists have found a rare Einstein ring in “our cosmic backyard” using images from the Euclid space telescope.
The discovery, published in the journal Astronomy And Astrophysics, is of a circle of light created by gravitational lensing around a galaxy 500 million light years away called NGC 6505.
Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicts that light will bend around objects in space, so that they focus the light like a giant lens, with this effect being bigger for massive galaxies.
This ring is made up of light from a galaxy 4.42 billion light years away and what can be seen from Earth is distorted by gravity.
Conor O’Riordan, of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany and lead author of the first scientific paper analysing the ring, said: “An Einstein ring is an example of strong gravitational lensing.
