Decades ago, Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational lenses as part of his general theory of relativity. Another physicist of the time predicted that if a distant object aligned precisely alongside the Earth and the gravitational lens, we would see that object’s halo, ring, or mirror. Einstein said we will never be able to observe these things directly. But ESO’s Very Large Telescope has now captured evidence of an “Einstein Multiplication”.
Like the Einstein Ring, the Einstein Cross occurs when gravitational lensing, the object we are observing, and our perspective are aligned just right. The Einstein Cross shows a reflection that looks like we are looking at multiple objects around each other, as opposed to a ring. However, in reality, this image is created by reflecting a single object four different times.
When Einstein predicted that we would never see an example of this incredible phenomenon, he was thinking that the distant galaxies we want to observe might not align exactly the way we need. Also, the possibility of a telescope being powerful enough to look this far into space was a big question mark at the time.
The “four-petaled flower,” as the European Southern Observatory calls it, is at the center of a new paper published this month in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. In the article, astronomer Aleksandar Cikota and his team examine this phenomenon in more depth and confirm the existence of the Einstien Cross using the Very Large Telescope.
The light coming from these galaxies is estimated to date back 11 billion years, meaning these galaxies are truly at an incredible distance. In fact, the galaxy is so far away that even the Very Large Telescope needs to use gravitational lensing to get a better look at it.
It may seem strange to think that someone as important as Einstein in our understanding of the universe could be wrong about something that now seems so simple to us. But this discovery shows how important it is to prove theories, and why theorizing is such an important part of how we learn about our universe.
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