A powerful telescope in space has discovered a rare ‘Einstein ring’ of light around a distant galaxy.
The European Space Agency’s Euclid telescope has imaged a halo of light around the galaxy NGC 6505, about 500 million light-years from Earth.
The ring of light is being created by another galaxy, 4.42 billion light-years from Earth, just behind NGC 6505.
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The images, published today in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, show the light from the galaxy behind it being distorted by the gravitational pull of NGC 6505.
Professor Stephen Sargent, an astronomer at the Open University, said: “This is a beautiful, unusual, exciting and fortunate discovery in the early data.
He added that it is extremely rare for an Einstein ring to be so complete. The background galaxy can be seen through the distorted space-time caused by the foreground galaxy.
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