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Five very old galaxies are now known to astrophysicists, thanks to Albert Einstein. A century ago, Einstein predicted an effect called cosmic gravitational lensing. Picture a massive galaxy out in space. From our vantage point, a second galaxy happens to be behind the first galaxy. That second galaxy should be hidden to us. Except that the nearer galaxy bends the light of the far galaxy coming our way. That light can sometimes become so distorted that it actually appears to ring the nearer galaxy. It’s called an Einstein ring, because he predicted that, too.
In the new study, researchers used the Herschel Space Observatory. The brightest spots on their sky map all turned out to be gravitationally magnified galaxies. The study is in the journal Science. [Mattia Negrello et al., "The Detection of a Population of Submillimeter-Bright, Strongly Lensed Galaxies"]
The observatory is really detecting infrared info, or heat, rather than visible light from the newly discovered galaxies. That radiation started coming our way when the universe was only two to four billion years old, less than a third of its current age. Researchers expect to find hundreds of new, old galaxies this way, along with new info about the early universe.
—Steve Mirsky
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
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Add CommentLieu and Mitaz in 2005 detected no discernable gravitational lens of the CMB cosmic microwave background radiation, which seriously flaws the big-bang theory. Arp photographed catalogued in 2003 many cases where connecting plasma filaments are between quasars and the foreground gravitational lensed parent host spiral galaxy. Arp stated that quasars are ejected at higher redshifts from the parent galaxy. Consider, early first generation quasars are all free of dust and b-holes examples J 0005-0006 and J 0303-0019. This is because a galaxy ejects plasma filaments at high redshifts, so little dust surrounds this solar system sized quasar that has the luminoisity of 100 galaxies! A quasar is only about the size of a solar system! the early quasars did NOT collide with other galaxies to form by mergers is further evidence to support Arp. And the fact that quasars do not have time dilation, the light appears instantly and is not delayed like standard candle supernovas that slow their flash with increasing redshifts and distances. if they are newer then their parent galaxy and highly redshifted, then redshifting through plasma space is not being performed nor analyzied correctly. Plasma cosmology has flaws, but today it is the best cosmology available! Additionally, if gravitational lensing is someday proved false, though widely touted as fact by those such paid professionals who require it to support their big-bang model, then the Einstein Cross is actually four ejected galaxies about solar system sized, with enormous luminoisity. This means we would not need dark matter, and black holes could be explained by EM Forces.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscool story bro
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCan't you have 2 galaxies acting as lenses = so like an interferometer or like wearing a pair of galaxy glasses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIMO, Einstein's prediction of galactic gravitational lensing was not predicated on the existence of any dark matter, but the curvature of spacetime produce by planar aggregations of billions of individual stars. Since these stars each produce their own spherical radial contraction ('curvature') of local spacetime, the aggregation of many local curvatures of external spacetime produces a distorted peripheral galactic lens effect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn my opinion, the distorted galactic lens effect most often observed at the periphery of spiral galaxies viewed from their polar perspective is produced by the local variability of spacetime curvature produced by their visible mass, as expected by Einstein. This effect is not the product of light materially dispersed or any curvature of spacetime produced by a spherical galactic halo of dark matter.
IMO, the title, "Cosmic Gravitational Lensing Reveals Ancient Galaxies" is a misnomer: the effect should more simply and properly be referred to as 'Galactic Gravitational Lensing'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIMO, the may be an undetected, undescribed lensing effect universally produced by spacetime expansion. If so, it should be more properly referred to as 'Cosmic Expansion Lensing'.