It looks like a distant ring with three sparkly jewels, but the Webb telescope’s (JWST) most recent image is really the view of a distant quasar lensed by a nearby elliptical galaxy. The telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) looked at the faint apparition during a study of dark matter and its distribution in the Universe.
Continue reading “Webb Looks at One of the Best Gravitationally Lensed Quasars Ever Discovered”Webb Looks at One of the Best Gravitationally Lensed Quasars Ever Discovered
![A small image of a galaxy distorted by gravitational lensing into a dim ring. At the top of the ring are three very bright spots with diffraction spikes coming off them, right next to each other: these are copies of a single quasar in the lensed galaxy, duplicated by the gravitational lens. In the centre of the ring, the elliptical galaxy doing the lensing appears as a small blue dot. Courtesy: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Nierenberg](https://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Webb_admires_bejewelled_ring_pillars-e1720304906410.jpg)