A quasar called RX J1131-1231 resides approximately 6 billion light-years away in the constellation of Crater.
This Webb image shows the RX J1131-1231 galaxy distorted by gravitational lensing into a dim ring; at the top of the ring are three very bright spots with diffraction spikes coming off them, right next to each other; these are copies of a single quasar in the lensed galaxy, duplicated by the gravitational lens; in the center of the ring, the elliptical galaxy doing the lensing appears as a small blue dot. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / A. Nierenberg.
RX J1131-1231 is considered one of the best lensed quasars discovered to date, as the foreground lensing galaxy smears the image of the background quasar into a bright arc and creates four images of the object.
“Gravitational lensing, first predicted by Albert Einstein, offers a rare opportunity to study regions close to the black hole in distant quasars, by acting as a natural telescope and magnifying the light from these sources,” the Webb astronomers said.
“All matter in the Universe warps the space around itself, with larger masses producing a more pronounced effect.”
“Around very massive objects, such as galaxies, light that passes close by follows this warped space, appearing to bend away from its original path by a clearly visible amount.”
“One of the consequential effects of gravitational lensing is that it can magnify distant astronomical objects, letting astronomers study objects that would otherwise be too faint or far away.”
“Measurements of the X-ray emission from quasars can provide an indication of how fast the central black hole is spinning, which can provide researchers important clues about how black holes grow over time,” they added.
“For example, if a black hole grows primarily from collisions and mergers between galaxies, it should accumulate material in a stable disk, and the steady supply of new material from the disk should lead to a rapidly spinning black hole.”
“On the other hand, if the black hole grew through many small accretion episodes, it would accumulate material from random directions.”
“Observations have indicated that the black hole in RX J1131-1231 is spinning at over half the speed of light, which suggests that this black hole has grown via mergers, rather than pulling material in from different directions.”
This new image of RX J1131-1231 was captured with Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) as part of an observation program to study dark matter.
“Dark matter is an invisible form of matter that accounts for most of the Universe’s mass,” the researchers said.
“Webb’s observations of quasars are allowing us to probe the nature of dark matter at smaller scales than ever before.”
_____
This article is a version of a press-release provided by NASA.
Source : Breaking Science News