Gravitational Lensing Found 44 New Stars:
Physicists studying a distant galaxy using a telescopic technique called “gravitational lensing” found 44 new stars.
- Gravitational Lensing occurs when a massive celestial body, such as a galaxy cluster, causes a sufficient curvature of spacetime for the path of light around it to be visibly bent, as if by a lens. The body causing the light to curve is accordingly called a gravitational lens.
- It was first predicted in 1915 by Albert Einstein, through his General Theory of Relativity.
- According to this theory, time and space are fused together in a quantity known as spacetime.
- Massive objects cause spacetime to curve. Gravity is simply the curvature of spacetime.
- As light travels through spacetime, the theory predicts that the path taken by the light will also be curved by an object’s mass.
- Thus, gravitational lensing is a dramatic and observable example of Einstein’s theory in action.
- It can make an object shift its apparent position in the sky over Earth, or it can cause a single object to appear at multiple points in the sky, occasionally giving rise to spectacular formations like rings and crosses made from the same object.
