Five very old galaxies are now known to astrophysicists, thanks to Albert Einstein. A century ago, Einstein predicted an effect called cosmic gravitational lensing. Picture a massive galaxy out in space. From our [--1--], a second galaxy happens to be behind the first galaxy. That second galaxy should be hidden to us. Except that the nearer galaxy [--2--] the light of the far galaxy coming our way. That light can sometimes become so [--3--] that it actually appears to ring the nearer galaxy. It’s called an Einstein ring, because he predicted that, too.
In the new study, researchers used the Herschel Space Observatory. The brightest spots on their sky map all turned out to be gravitationally [--4--] galaxies. The study is in the journal Science.
The observatory is really detecting infrared info, or heat, rather than visible light from the newly discovered galaxies. That radiation [--5--] when the universe was only two to four billion years old, less than a third of its current age.
Researchers expect to find hundreds of new, old galaxies this way, along with new info about the early universe.
【视听版科学小组荣誉出品】
vantage point bends distorted magnified started coming our way
透镜效应:揭开古老星系面纱 多亏爱因斯坦,5个古老的星系在天体物理学家们中耳熟能详.一个世纪以前,爱因斯坦预言了一种宇宙引力透镜效应.想象宇宙中有一个巨大的星系,从我们的有利观测点看,第二个星系恰巧就在第一个星系后面.而这第二个星系应该是在跟我们”躲猫猫”.只是近星系弯曲了从远星系过来的光线.这个光线有时候会变得十分扭曲,使其看起来就像是近星系的一个环.这就是爱因斯坦环,因为这也是他预言的. 在一项新研究中,研究人员使用赫歇尔空间天文台.他们的天图上所有最亮的点都被证明是引力放大星系.这项研究收藏在<科学>期刊中. 天文台时刻都在探测红外信号和热信号,而不仅仅探测从新发现的星系发出的可见光.这些星系发出的光到达我们星球时,它们才二十到四十亿岁,不足它们现有现有年龄的三分之一.研究人员期望用这种方式从上百个新旧星系中发现一些关于早期宇宙的新信息.