﻿ Astronomy Picture of the Day [1]Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2022 July 5 [2]The featured image shows a distant galaxy distorted into a giant arc around the center of a galaxy cluster by gravitational lensing. Please see the explanation for more detailed information. A Molten Galaxy Einstein Ring Image Credit: [3]ESA/[4]Hubble & [5]NASA, [6]S. Jha; Processing: [7]Jonathan Lodge Explanation: It is difficult to hide a galaxy behind a cluster of galaxies. The closer cluster's gravity will act like a [8]huge lens, pulling images of the [9]distant galaxy around the sides and [10]greatly distorting them. This is just the case observed in the [11]featured image recently re-processed image from the [12]Hubble Space Telescope. The cluster [13]GAL-CLUS-022058c is composed of many galaxies and is [14]lensing the image of a yellow-red background galaxy into [15]arcs seen around the image center. Dubbed a molten [16]Einstein ring for its [17]unusual shape, four images of the same background galaxy [18]have been identified. Typically, a foreground galaxy cluster can only create such smooth arcs if most of its mass is [19]smoothly distributed -- and therefore not concentrated in the cluster galaxies visible. Analyzing the positions of these [20]gravitational arcs gives astronomers a method to estimate the [21]dark matter distribution in galaxy clusters, as well as infer when the stars in these early galaxies began to form. New APOD Social Mirrors in Arabic: On [22]Facebook, [23]Instagram, and [24]Twitter Tomorrow's picture: star streamers __________________________________________________________________ [25]< | [26]Archive | [27]Submissions | [28]Index | [29]Search | [30]Calendar | [31]RSS | [32]Education | [33]About APOD | [34]Discuss | [35]> __________________________________________________________________ Authors & editors: [36]Robert Nemiroff ([37]MTU) & [38]Jerry Bonnell ([39]UMCP) NASA Official: Phillip Newman [40]Specific rights apply. [41]NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices A service of: [42]ASD at [43]NASA / [44]GSFC & [45]Michigan Tech. U. References 1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2207/MoltenEinsteinRing_HubbleLodge_2972.jpg 3. https://www.esa.int/ 4. https://esahubble.org/ 5. https://www.nasa.gov/ 6. https://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~saurabh/ 7. https://www.instagram.com/jjlodge 8. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220511.html 9. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210802.html 10. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210823.html 11. https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2020/hubble-sees-a-molten-ring 12. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/about 13. https://esahubble.org/images/potw2050a/ 14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens 15. https://www.space.com/hubble-telescope-molten-ring-photo-distance-calculation 16. https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2005/32/1788-Image.html 17. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8c/67/69/8c6769e0323ffa6e7aadf98ddf34d5fe.jpg 18. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2021ApJ...919...48D/abstract 19. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2020ApJ...898...81C/abstract 20. https://noirlab.edu/science/programs/ctio/telescopes/soar-telescope/news/gravitational-arcs-galaxy-cluster-abel-370 21. https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy 22. https://www.facebook.com/APODArabic 23. https://www.instagram.com/apod.arabic/ 24. https://twitter.com/APODArabic 25. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220704.html 26. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 27. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html 28. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html 29. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search 30. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html 31. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod.rss 32. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html 33. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html 34. http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=220705 35. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220706.html 36. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html 37. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ 38. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html 39. http://www.astro.umd.edu/ 40. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 41. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html 42. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 43. https://www.nasa.gov/ 44. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ 45. http://www.mtu.edu/