Animation of a Gravitational Lens Creating an Einstein Ring

14 April, 2016 / Read time: 1 minute

Animation demonstrating how the gravity from a massive foreground galaxy can bend the light of a more distant galaxy. If the two galaxies line up just right, the result is a highly distorted image of the distant galaxy known as an Einstein ring. The radio image portion of the video is of galaxy SDP.81, which was imaged by ALMA as part of the telescope's Long Baseline Campaign.

Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; ALMA (NRAO/ESO/NAOJ); Dana Berry / SkyWorks