Gravitational Lensing
Using the Sun as a Gravitational Lens Would Let Us See Exoplanets With Incredible Resolution
Have you ever seen wispy arcs and rings in astronomical images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories?…
Hubble Pins Down the Mass of a Potential Free-Floating Black Hole That’s 5,000 Light-Years Away
Earlier this year, astronomers used microlensing and the Hubble Space Telescope to detect, for the first time, a rogue black…
We can Probably Find Supernovae Enhanced by Gravitational Lensing, We Just Need to Look
Gravitational lensing provides an opportunity to see supernovae and other transients much farther than we normally can. A new research…
A Gravitational Lens Shows the Same Galaxy Three Times
Images from the Hubble Space Telescope are often mind-bending in both their beauty and wealth of scientific wonder. And sometimes,…
What a Perfect Gravitational Lens
A stunning new photograph from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a nearly perfect Einstein Ring, an effect caused by gravitational…
Gaia Finds 12 Examples of Einstein Crosses; Galaxies Being Gravitationally Lensed so we see Them Repeated 4 Times
After examining data from the Gaia Observatory, a team of researchers found 12 more examples of the rare phenomenon known…
Dark Energy Survey Finds Hundreds of New Gravitational Lenses
It’s relatively rare for a magical object from fantasy stories to have a analog in real life. A truly functional…
If We Used the Sun as a Gravitational Lens Telescope, This is What a Planet at Proxima Centauri Would Look Like
A recent study shows how the Sun could be used as a gravitational lens to take direct images of nearby…
Gravitational lenses could be the key to measuring the expansion rate of the Universe
Nailing down cosmic expansion could depend on distant quasars, and the time it takes their light to reach us when…
A Rogue Earth-Mass Planet Has Been Discovered Freely Floating in the Milky Way Without a Star
If a solar system is a family, then some planets leave home early. Whether they want to or not. Once…