Euclid Telescope Captures Rare Einstein Ring, Unlocking Dark Matter Insights

The European Space Agency's Euclid telescope has discovered a near-perfect Einstein ring in galaxy NGC 6505, offering a unique opportunity to study dark matter and the universe's expansion.

• The Einstein ring, created by gravitational lensing, was detected in galaxy NGC 6505, located approximately 590 million light-years away.
• This rare phenomenon results from the precise alignment of a foreground galaxy, a background galaxy 4.42 billion light-years away, and the Euclid telescope.
• The discovery highlights the telescope's capabilities, as the ring was found in a well-studied galaxy where it had never been observed before.
• Early analysis reveals that dark matter accounts for only 11% of the central region's mass in NGC 6505, contrasting with its usual 85% contribution to the universe's mass.
• Euclid's six-year mission aims to map over a third of the sky, uncovering up to 100,000 gravitational lenses to study dark matter, dark energy, and the universe's evolution.

3 Articles

Universe Today Gadgets 360 Tech Explorist