File:A flower with four petals (full field of view) (potw2337b).jpg
Original file (942 × 908 pixels, file size: 81 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
Captions
Summary[edit]
DescriptionA flower with four petals (full field of view) (potw2337b).jpg |
English: There are several galaxies in this Picture of the Week, but the most fascinating is probably the one surrounded by four light-blue dots, resembling a flower with blue petals. But, are these dots real? Yes and no… Taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), this image shows a so-called Einstein Cross.The four ‘petals’ are images of a distant galaxy hidden behind the orange galaxy at the centre. Something very fascinating happens to allow us to detect the light from this hidden object: the galaxy at the centre acts as a gravitational lens, bending the light emitted from the distant galaxy around it. As a result, we see several images of the distant galaxy, distorted and magnified. In the special configuration of these two galaxies, the hidden one appears as four images around the central ‘lens’ galaxy, forming a cross-like (or flower-like) pattern dubbed an Einstein Cross. Gravitational lensing thus allows us to discover hidden galaxies that would be otherwise invisible to us.The observations of this system were conducted with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument at ESO’s VLT in Chile. MUSE splits the light coming from every point within the area being observed into a rainbow or spectrum, which provides astronomers with a wealth of information about the objects within the field of view. The results of these observations, presented in a new paper led by Aleksandar Cikota at the Gemini Observatory in Chile, show that the distant galaxy is forming stars at a rapid rate[#1 [1]]. Since light left the galaxy when the Universe was about 20% of its current age, studying it provides clues about how galaxies formed in the early Universe. |
||
Date | 11 September 2023 (upload date) | ||
Source |
|
||
Author | ESO/A. Cikota et al. | ||
Other versions |
|
Licensing[edit]
This media was created by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
Their website states: "Unless specifically noted, the images, videos, and music distributed on the public ESO website, along with the texts of press releases, announcements, pictures of the week, blog posts and captions, are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, and may on a non-exclusive basis be reproduced without fee provided the credit is clear and visible." To the uploader: You must provide a link (URL) to the original file and the authorship information if available. | |
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
|
File history
Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.
Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
current | 07:15, 11 September 2023 | 942 × 908 (81 KB) | OptimusPrimeBot (talk | contribs) | #Spacemedia - Upload of https://www.eso.org/public/archives/images/large/potw2337b.jpg via Commons:Spacemedia |
You cannot overwrite this file.
File usage on Commons
The following page uses this file:
Metadata
This file contains additional information such as Exif metadata which may have been added by the digital camera, scanner, or software program used to create or digitize it. If the file has been modified from its original state, some details such as the timestamp may not fully reflect those of the original file. The timestamp is only as accurate as the clock in the camera, and it may be completely wrong.
Credit/Provider | ESO/A. Cikota et al. |
---|---|
Source | European Southern Observatory |
Short title |
|
Image title |
|
Usage terms |
|
Date and time of data generation | 06:00, 11 September 2023 |
Software used | Adobe Photoshop 24.7 (Windows) |
File change date and time | 13:29, 28 August 2023 |
Date and time of digitizing | 12:41, 28 August 2023 |
Date metadata was last modified | 15:29, 28 August 2023 |
Unique ID of original document | xmp.did:676307d4-fb1f-384b-9919-6bd2c2e838f2 |
Contact information |
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2 Garching bei München, None, D-85748 Germany |
IIM version | 4 |