The first image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope is a bit odd, if found, there are two almost mirror-image orange galaxies in the middle, connected by long filaments. According to scientists’ analysis, these are not two galaxies, but one.
This galaxy is named SGAS J143845+145407. Due to the gravitational distortion of a large mass of celestial bodies in front of us, we see two galaxies on Earth. This effect is called the gravitational lensing effect, which will increase the brightness of the background galaxy and even make the background galaxy To produce multiple images, these galaxies would otherwise be too far away to see details, so gravitational lensing becomes one of the important tools for understanding the distant universe.
Sometimes the light is very blurry and distorted. In the deep-field images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope recently, the deformed, distorted, and curved celestial bodies are actually caused by the gravitational lensing effect. If a distant galaxy produces four images around it, it is called Einstein. cross.
SGAS J143845+145407 is right behind a small galaxy cluster, and the gravitational lensing effect produces two near-perfect galaxies, which make them appear larger and more detailed, and can be confirmed and verified repeatedly. Light takes about 6.9 billion years to reach Earth, and the light from the preceding galaxy cluster is 2.8 billion light-years away.
▲ Schematic diagram of the effect of gravity lens simulation, the orange line comes from the same luminous body.
SGAS J143845+145407 is of great scientific interest because it is a bright infrared galaxy with intense star-forming activity and relatively bright light. Studying such galaxies can help scientists understand star formation and changes in the history of the universe. Using the gravitational lensing effect, scientists have recently been able to reconstruct the stellar distribution in SGAS J143845+145407, which is quite typical of the same type. Therefore, the scientists studied this galaxy as a model to help analyze other galaxies.
(This article is reproduced with permission from the Taipei Planetarium; source of the first image: ESA)
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