National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Photo: Perfectly Aligned Galaxies Found For the First Time


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Scientists have for the first time found a double Einstein ring, a discovery they say could help unravel the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.

The phenomenon occurs because a massive galaxy is distorting light from two galaxies arranged in a perfect line behind it, creating concentric halos.

The unusual arrangement was spotted by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Image by NASA, ESA, R. Gavazzi and T. Treu (University of California, Santa Barbara), and the SLACS team