Scientists discover rare Einstein ring

An international team of astrophysicists have discovered an unusual astronomical object — an Einstein ring.
This phenomenon was predicted by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity and has been given its own name “The Canarias Einstein ring”.
What is Einstein ring?

• In observational astronomy, an Einstein ring (Einstein-Chwolson ring) is the deformation (distortion) of the light from a source (such as a star or galaxy) into a ring through gravitational lensing of the source’s light by an object with an extremely large mass (such as a black hole or another galaxy).
• The distortion is produced by the bending of the light rays from the source due to a massive galaxy is termed the It lies between source and the observer.
• The strong gravitational field produced by the lens galaxy distorts the structure of space-time in its neighbourhood. It attracts objects which have a mass and bends paths of light.
• When the two galaxies are exactly aligned, the image of the more distant galaxy is converted into an almost perfect circle which surrounds the lens galaxy. The irregularities in the circle are due to asymmetries in the source galaxy.

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2016