Since the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope were released in July, our feeds have been flooded with mind-blowingly beautiful space photographs, from incredibly detailed images of Jupiter to the most distant star known .
Now, Webb has done it again, this time capturing a near-perfect Einstein ring some 12 billion light-years away. And we can’t stop looking.
You can see the colorful image, which was shared by astronomy student Spaceguy44 on Reddit, below.
As Spaceguy44 explains on Reddit, an Einstein ring occurs when a massive galaxy in front of it has expanded and wrapped itself into a nearly perfect ring.
The galaxy in question is called SPT-S J041839-4751.8 and is 12 billion light-years away.
Here’s a further view, also rendered by Spaceguy44:
Galaxy SPT-S J041839-4751.8. (JWST/MAST; Spaceguy44/Reddit)
According to Spaceguy44, we wouldn’t be able to see this galaxy if it weren’t for Einstein’s ring.
And the presence of the Einstein rings, in addition to looking beautiful, allows us to study these otherwise almost impossible-to-see galaxies.
This process is known as gravitational lensing, and is an effect predicted by Einstein, hence the name.
The effect only occurs when the distant galaxy, the nearest magnifying galaxy, and the observer (in this case the Webb Space Telescope) line up.
If you want to try it yourself, Spaceguy44 says that the stem and base of a wine glass create a similar effect. Try doing this with a page in a book and see the word expanded.
Although seeing Einstein rings is rare, it is not uncommon. Hubble previously captured images of Einstein’s spectacular rings.
This isn’t even the first time Webb has captured SPT-S J041839-4751.8’s Einstein ring.
The space telescope’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) captured the same region in August, and Spaceguy44 also colored it and posted it.
But the picture below was not so clear.
Near-infrared image of the Einstein ring. (JWST/MAST; Spaceguy44/Reddit)
In the last image, the data was captured by Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) camera and downloaded from the MAST portal.
The image uses three different filters. Red is the F1000W filter, which captures wavelengths of light at 10 µm. Green is the F770W filter, for 7.7 µm wavelengths. Blue is the F560W filter which collects 5.6 µm wavelengths.
The images were then aligned and colored by Spaceguy44 using astropy and post-processed in GIMP.