Archivo de imágenes de Hubble
Cuásares con lentes gravitacionales
Quasars' Multiple Images Shed Light on Tiny Dark Matter ClumpsEach of these Hubble Space Telescope snapshots reveals four distorted images of a background quasar and its host galaxy surrounding the central core of a foreground massive galaxy.The gravity of the massive foreground...
- Fecha
- Jan 1, 2020
- Misión
- Hubble Space Telescope
- ID de archivo
- hubblesite-images-2020-05-4613-image
Quasars' Multiple Images Shed Light on Tiny Dark Matter Clumps
Each of these Hubble Space Telescope snapshots reveals four distorted images of a background quasar and its host galaxy surrounding the central core of a foreground massive galaxy.
The gravity of the massive foreground galaxy is acting like a magnifying glass by warping the quasar’s light in an effect called gravitational lensing. Quasars are extremely distant cosmic streetlights produced by active black holes. Such quadruple images of quasars are rare because of the nearly exact alignment needed between the foreground galaxy and background quasar.
Astronomers used the gravitational lensing effect to detect the smallest clumps of dark matter ever found. The clumps are located along the telescope's line of sight to the quasars, as well as in and around the foreground lensing galaxies.
The presence of the dark matter concentrations alters the apparent brightness and position of each distorted quasar image. Astronomers compared these measurements with predictions of how the quasar images would look without the influence of the dark matter clumps. The researchers used these measurements to calculate the masses of the tiny dark matter concentrations.
Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 captured the near-infrared light from each quasar and dispersed it into its component colors for study with spectroscopy. The images were taken between 2015 and 2018.
Credits
NASA, ESA, A. Nierenberg (JPL) and T. Treu (UCLA)Detalles de la imagen
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | RX J0911+0551, WGD J0405-3308, HS 0810+2554, PS J1606-2333, WFI 2033-4723, SDSS J1330+1810 |
| Object Description | Background quasars gravitationally lensed by foreground galaxies |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The HST observations include those from programs (R. Bielby), (A. Nierenberg), (T. Treu), (A. Nierenberg) and, (D. Floyd). |
| Instrument | WFC3/IR |
| Exposure Dates | 30 April 2013 through 15 August 2018 |
| Filters | F105W, F140W, F160W |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | These images are a composite of separate exposures acquired by the WFC3/IR instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. Several filters were used to sample particular wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are Cyan: F140W/F105W Orange: F160W. |
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Fuente
La imagen y el material de referencia se acreditan al archivo oficial de la misión enlazado a continuación.
Ver en NASA.gov