Move Over, Hubble: Gravity Itself Is The Best Cosmic Telescope Of All (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]


“Gravitational and electromagnetic interactions are long-range interactions, meaning they act on objects no matter how far they are separated from each other.” -Francois Englert

Want a recipe for seeing as far into the distant Universe as you can? Because of how distance and brightness are inversely related, you need to make the most of every photon, build as large a telescope as possible and observe for long periods of time in order to collect the most light.

Image credit: NASA/ESA, of an illustration of how gravitational lensing works.

Image credit: XMM-Newton, ESA, NASA.

But there’s an extra bit of magnification that Einstein’s General Relativity gives to us for free: gravitational lensing, where any large mass magnifies the light from the objects directly behind it. Thanks to this technique, we’ve discovered the most distant galaxies ever.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, R. Bouwens and G. Illingsworth (UC Santa Cruz).

Image credit: XMM-Newton, ESA, NASA.

Starts With A Bang begins on Forbes today; come check out our debut piece!



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1H07hbD

“Gravitational and electromagnetic interactions are long-range interactions, meaning they act on objects no matter how far they are separated from each other.” -Francois Englert

Want a recipe for seeing as far into the distant Universe as you can? Because of how distance and brightness are inversely related, you need to make the most of every photon, build as large a telescope as possible and observe for long periods of time in order to collect the most light.

Image credit: NASA/ESA, of an illustration of how gravitational lensing works.

Image credit: XMM-Newton, ESA, NASA.

But there’s an extra bit of magnification that Einstein’s General Relativity gives to us for free: gravitational lensing, where any large mass magnifies the light from the objects directly behind it. Thanks to this technique, we’ve discovered the most distant galaxies ever.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, R. Bouwens and G. Illingsworth (UC Santa Cruz).

Image credit: XMM-Newton, ESA, NASA.

Starts With A Bang begins on Forbes today; come check out our debut piece!



from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1H07hbD

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