New photos of galactic "arcs and streaks" in space released by NASA's James Webb telescope show just how trippy a phenomenon called gravitational lensing can look.
Gravitational lensing is a literal warping of spacetime. It occurs when a celestial body with a significant gravitational pull "causes a sufficient curvature of spacetime for the path of light around it to be visibly bent, as if by a lens," the European Space Agency explains.
Basically, the celestial body will distort the galaxies and stars behind it to someone looking from a distance.
Gravitational lensing also has a magnifying effect, which makes it helpful for scientists studying distant galaxies that may otherwise be too difficult to spot. The SDSS J1226+2149 galaxy cluster shown in this newest photo is around 6.3 billion light years away, in the constellation Coma Berenices, according to the ESA.
Source: www.businessinsider.com
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment