In one of the latest images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a beautiful, “tricky” halo of warped light generated by a supermassive black hole is the focal point. A loop of light that bears a striking resemblance to “Einstein’s ring,” adorns four bright spots — but not all of them are real.
Star-studded halo v new look it is formed by light from a quasar – a supermassive Black hole at the heart of a young galaxy that shoots out powerful jets of energy as it swallows vast amounts of matter. This quasar, previously known to scientists, is called RX J1131-1231 and is located about 6 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Craters. European Space Agency (ESA).
The circular shape of a quasar is the result of a a phenomenon known as gravitational lensingin which light from a distant object—such as a galaxy, quasar, or supernova—travels through space-time that has been curved gravitation of another massive object located between the distant object and the observer. As a result, the light appears to bend around the central object even though it is traveling in a straight line. In this case, the quasar is lensed by a closer nameless galaxy, which is visible as a blue dot in the center of the luminous ring.
Gravitational lensing also magnifies our view of extremely distant objects such as RX J1131-1231, which would otherwise be almost invisible to us. This magnification effect can create bright spots in lensed objects that shine like brilliant gems in a jewelespecially when the distant object is not perfectly aligned with the observer.
This photo has four bright spots, indicating that four different objects are being lensed. However, the orientation and appearance of these gems around the ring tells us that they are the mirror image of a single bright point that, according to the ESA, has been duplicated by the lensing effect.
Duplication of the bright spot is especially common in warped quasars because these objects are some of the brightest entities in the universe.
Related: Researchers Solve Mystery of Inexplicably Dense Galaxy at Heart of Perfect ‘Einstein Ring’ Captured by James Webb Telescope
When light from a distant gravitationally lensed object forms a perfect circle, it is called an Einstein ring, which is called because Albert Einstein first predicted the lens effect with his theory of general relativity in 1915.
However, in this case the light was not perfectly lensed and the ring shape is mainly due to the duplication of the quasar’s bright spot. Previous images of the warped quasar also show that the light does not form a perfect circle.
Einstein rings and other gravitationally lensed objects can help reveal hidden information about distant objects. For example, in 2014, scientists used light from RX J1131-1231 to determine how fast its supermassive black hole is spinning, a sister site to Live Science. This was previously reported by Space.com.
The size and shape of gravitationally lensed objects also allows scientists to calculate the mass of their lenses, such as the blue dot in this image. By comparing this value to the light emitted by the galaxy, scientists can calculate how much dark matter — a mysterious type of matter that does not react with light but interacts gravitationally with normal matter — lies inside these galaxies. As a result, these distorted light shows can be ours the best tool for uncovering the secret identity of dark matter.