Using gravitational lensing and a massive galaxy cluster located 3.2 billion light years away the powerful space telescope replicated a distant galaxy three times in a single image.
, Einstein predicted that mass warps the very fabric of space and time, or"spacetime." This is analogous to placing a ball on a stretched rubber sheet, with the ball causing a dent in the sheet. The greater the mass of the ball the larger the degree of warping it causes. This is also true in the case of spacetime, stars cause a greater"warp" than planets, and galaxies cause a greater warping of space than stars.
This warping affects the passage of light as it travels past the object of mass from a background object. In extreme cases, because light can take different paths around the lensing object from the background lensed object on its way to us, it can cause the background object to be magnified or even appear at multiple points in the sky. That means this phenomenon,"gravitational lensing" has become a powerful tool for astronomers in studying very distant objects.
The lensing object in this new JWST image is the galactic cluster RX J2129, located around 3.2 billion light-years away in thesupernova explosion was discovered by astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope and is a Type Ia supernova designated AT 2022riv. These are often referred to as"standard candles" by astronomers because of how uniform their light is. This uniformity means that Type Ia supernovas can actually be used as a tool of measure cosmic distances because at the same distance, they would look exactly the same.
As a gravitational lens, RX J2129 has created three images of this galaxy that aren't the same in size, position, or even age because of the different paths the light from the backgroundThe unannotated image from the James Webb Space Telescope showing a large elliptical galaxy surrounded by many smaller similar galaxies, including the galaxy cluster RX J2129 and upper right.
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