Scientists discover Einstein rings located 10,000 million light years away

In a breakthrough research, scientists have discovered one of the most symmetrical Einstein rings which is created by a galaxy located 10,000 million light years away that is hidden behind a more massive galaxy. These rings were predicted by Einstein's theory of General Relativity which are quite rare but scientifically interesting.

What is an Einstein's Ring?

An Einstein ring is a distorted image of a very distant galaxy, which is termed ‘the source’. The distortion is produced by the bending of the light rays from the source due to a massive galaxy, termed "the lens", lying between it and the observer. While analyzing the stellar population of the Sculptor dwarf galaxy, peculiar morphology of the Einstein ring was noticed.

It was when the researchers started to observe and analyse its physical properties with the OSIRIS spectrograph on the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC).

According to researchers, Canarias Einstein ring" is one of the most symmetrical discovered until now and is almost circular, showing that the two galaxies are almost perfectly aligned, with a separation on the sky of only 0.2 arcseconds. The results were published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.