Astronomers Witness Light Delayed by Almost 7 Years as It's Warped by a Galaxy Cluster
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:24 pm
Astronomers Witness Light Delayed by Almost 7 Years as It's Warped by a Galaxy Cluster
https://www.sciencealert.com/astronomer ... xy-cluster
Way back in 1979, astronomers spotted two nearly identical quasars that seemed close to each other in the sky. These so-called 'Twin Quasars' are actually separate images of the same object.
Even more intriguing: the light paths that created each image traveled through different parts of the cluster. One path took a little longer than the other.
That meant a flicker in one image of the quasar occurred 14 months later in the other.
The reason? The cluster's mass distribution formed a lens that distorted the light and drastically affected the two paths.
Fast-forward to 2022. A team of astronomers from the University of Valencia reported on their study of a similar effect with another distant quasar.
They spent 14 years measuring an even longer time delay between multiple images of their target quasar: 6.73 years – the longest ever detected for a gravitational lens.
The galaxy cluster SDSS J1004+4112 plays a role in the delay. The combo of galaxies and dark matter in the cluster is really entangling the quasar light as it passes through.
https://www.sciencealert.com/astronomer ... xy-cluster
Way back in 1979, astronomers spotted two nearly identical quasars that seemed close to each other in the sky. These so-called 'Twin Quasars' are actually separate images of the same object.
Even more intriguing: the light paths that created each image traveled through different parts of the cluster. One path took a little longer than the other.
That meant a flicker in one image of the quasar occurred 14 months later in the other.
The reason? The cluster's mass distribution formed a lens that distorted the light and drastically affected the two paths.
Fast-forward to 2022. A team of astronomers from the University of Valencia reported on their study of a similar effect with another distant quasar.
They spent 14 years measuring an even longer time delay between multiple images of their target quasar: 6.73 years – the longest ever detected for a gravitational lens.
The galaxy cluster SDSS J1004+4112 plays a role in the delay. The combo of galaxies and dark matter in the cluster is really entangling the quasar light as it passes through.