New validation of the theory of relativity is coming from a distant part of the universe.
Hubble Space Telescope captures an “impressive image”Einstein ring“Billions of light years from Earth.
This is a strange phenomenon named after the German physicist who predicted that gravity would divert light.
The photo, released by the European Space Agency, shows a bright ring with four points of light around two points.
But really those bright spots are not six galaxies, three then it looks like four. Because the masses of the two front galaxies are so large, it causes a gravitational curve of space-time around the pair.
The distance between them and us is unimaginable.
In the distance, a special type of very bright galaxy with a gigantic black hole at its center, called a quasar 15 billion light years from Earth.
The closest is 3.4 billion light years away.
Why are they so called
Named after Albert Einstein, a physicist who predicted in 1911 that gravity would affect geography.
Einstein put forward this idea as the basis of his general theory of relativity in 1915, four years after the British astronomer Arthur Eddington confirmed its effect during a solar eclipse on the island of Principe on the west coast of Africa.
Eddington found that the stars near the ecliptic disk appeared slightly out of place as they were deflected by the Sun’s gravitational pull.
But telescopes from the time of Einstein could not find beyond this.
This phenomenon was first observed in 1979 by American astronomers.
Since then, hundreds of Einstein rings and another similar phenomenon called the Einstein Cross have been discovered, in which a distant galaxy appears as four distinct images orbiting a galaxy near Earth.
This is why it happens
Einstein’s general theory of relativity describes the process of disintegration of the largest mass of matter in space, known as the fabric of the universe.
According to this theory, gravity is not created by an invisible force, it is simply the experience of the curvature and decay of space-time in the presence of matter and energy.
This curved space sets the rules for how energy and matter move.
Although light travels in a straight line, light passing through a more curved region, such as the space around two large galaxies, orbits the galaxy and propagates in a halo.