The COSMOS-Web JWST survey delivered the deepest wide-field near-infrared images to date, detecting over 780,000 galaxies. Gravitational distortion by massive foreground objects produced numerous strong-lensing configurations. Roughly 400 lensing candidates were identified, with 17 spectacular systems confirmed, including a ringed source from when the Universe was about one billion years old. Lenses include both giant ellipticals and edge-on spirals, producing multiply imaged galaxies, rings, arcs, and tadpole-like shapes. More than 100 candidates are likely real gravitational lenses. Many lensed systems appear brighter than predicted, posing a scientific puzzle requiring follow-up analysis.
"The JWST era continues to show us the Universe as never before. Its recently completed COSMOS-Web survey provides our deepest wide-field views ever. Revealing a whopping 780,000+ galaxies, some would inevitably be co-aligned with background objects. Massive objects, like foreground galaxies, gravitationally distort any light traveling along their line-of-sight. This leads to the phenomenon of strong gravitational lensing: magnifying, distorting, and creating multiple images of background sources."
"Many impressive gravitational lenses have been viewed with JWST before. But the large, deep COSMOS-Web survey was predicted to yield 107 new gravitational lenses. Indeed, ~400 lensing candidates were identified, and the 17 most spectacular are already confirmed. Among them are the incredible COSMOS-Web ring, dated at a cosmic age of just 1 billion years. It isn't just giant elliptical galaxies that make lenses, but even edge-on spiral galaxies. Many lenses showcase multiply-imaged background galaxies, pearl-like lights within a lensed ring,"
"arcing, tadpole-like shapes, plus other attention-grabbing features. An eight-lens COSMOS-Web composite was named the European Space Agency's picture of the month. Over 100 of COSMOS-Web's lens candidates are likely to be physically real gravitational lenses. The observed brightnesses of these lensed systems are greater than expected: a scientific puzzle to be solved. Mostly Mute Monday tells an astronomical story in images, visuals, and no more than 200 words."
Read at Big Think
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]