A new space image from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) shows a distant galaxy surrounded by four light-blue flower petal-like objects, making it to look like a cosmic flower.
ESO New Space Image Captures A Cosmic Wildflower In Deep Space| ScienceAlert
The new space image shows a galaxy in the center that acts as a gravitational lens, bending and magnifying light from a hidden galaxy behind it.
This creates duplicate images of the background galaxy, forming a ring of petals around the central galaxy, which is visible on the new space image the ESO’s Very Large Telescope captured.
This phenomenon, known as gravitational lensing, allows astronomers to see distant objects that would otherwise be obscured, and captures new space image.
The galaxies captured in the new space image also known as the Einstein Cross are from the early universe.
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The findings about Einstein Cross were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
As shown in the new space image, the central galaxy appears red due to old stars, while the distant galaxy appears blue because it is an actively forming new stars.
The observations of the new space image were done using the MUSE instrument at ESO’s VLT in Chile, which splits the light into a spectrum, providing valuable information about the objects captured in the new space image, according to ESO.
The study of this particular system reveals that the distant galaxy is experiencing rapid star formation and offers insights into the formation of galaxies in the early Universe, ESO added.
READ MORE|Einstein cross! Gravitationally lensed ‘flower’ spotted in deep space (photo)
