Bright Einstein Ring Detected: Galaxy NGC 6505 in Draco | Euclid Space Telescope

Bright Einstein Ring Detected: Galaxy NGC 6505 in Draco | Euclid Space Telescope

This wide field shows the extended stellar halo of galaxy NGC 6505 and showcases the Einstein ring, surrounded by colorful foreground stars and background galaxies.

Close-up of the Einstein ring around galaxy NGC 6505

The ring of light surrounding the center of the galaxy NGC 6505, captured by the European Space Agency's Euclid telescope, is a stunning example of an Einstein ring. NGC 6505 is acting as a gravitational lens, bending light from a galaxy far behind it. The almost perfect alignment of NGC 6505 and the background galaxy has bent and magnified the light from the background galaxy into a spectacular ring. This rare phenomenon was first theorized to exist by Einstein in his general theory of relativity.

The wide field in the first image shows the extended stellar halo of NGC 6505 and showcases the Einstein ring, surrounded by colorful foreground stars and background galaxies.

Image 1 Description: A sea of colorful stars and galaxies appear to swim in the vast blackness of space around a hazy halo at centre stage. In the middle of the image, the fuzzy-looking bulb of light in a warm shade of yellow extends around a small bright spot, nestled within a thin light circle that appears to be drawn closely around it. As we follow the central halo’s rim outwards, its brightness dims and blends smoothly into its surroundings. Here, extended discs of shades ranging from a warm purple to golden yellow, and piercing dots of light with sharp diffraction spikes are spread evenly across the image.

In the second image, we see a close-up view of the center of the NGC 6505 galaxy with the bright Einstein ring around its nucleus, captured by the European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope.

The Einstein ring is formed by gravitational lensing, with the mass of galaxy NGC 6505 bending and magnifying the light from a more distant galaxy into a ring. NGC 6505 is a well-known galaxy only around 590 million light-years from Earth, and Euclid’s discovery of a spectacular Einstein ring here was unexpected.

Image 2 Description: A thin ring of a perfect circular shape and a piercingly bright white disc in its middle are the protagonists of this image. They stand out against a uniformly coloured background of a hazy dark grey. The ring appears as if it was a faint brush stroke, where at four evenly spaced spots more pressure was applied on the brush. These stand out in the ring as four brighter and thicker spots. The white disc within the ring gives the impression of a gaping hole in the image, through its stark contrast to the dark background.

Credits: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, G. Anselmi, T. Li; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Release Date: Feb. 10, 2025

#NASA #ESA #ESAEuclid #Astronomy #Space #Science #Galaxies #Galaxy #NGC6505 #EinsteinRing #GravitationalLensing #Draco #Constellation #Astrophysics #Cosmos #Universe #EST #EuclidSpaceTelescope #Europe #STEM #Education