Einstein’s ring arises from gravitational lensing, in which a massive object (large galaxy or black hole) distorts the light of a galaxy or star, turning it into a ring. The Webb Telescope captured the ring of the galaxy SPT-S J041839-4751.8, which is located at a distance of 12 billion light years from Earth. Einstein’s rings make it possible to study galaxies that are otherwise almost impossible to see. The existence of gravitational lensing was predicted by Albert Einstein, so the effect is named following him.
According to an astronomer who posted a colorized photo of the ring on Reddit, we wouldn’t be able to see this particular galaxy if it wasn’t for the lensing effect. On top of that, the galaxy, the massive object, and the point of observation (that is, the telescope) must be on the same straight line, which happens quite rarely.
Einstein’s rings were observed by Hubble, and earlier the Webb telescope with the help of the near-infrared camera (NIRCam) had already managed. Images from the Webb Telescope are made available to the public, and anyone can process them using the GIMP graphics editor and a special scientific library for Python called Astropy.
