Most distant gravitational lens helps weigh galaxies
Thursday, October 17, 2013 - 11:00
in Astronomy & Space
Astronomers have found the most distant gravitational lens yet -- a galaxy that, as predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, deflects and intensifies the light of an even more distant object. The discovery provides a rare opportunity to directly measure the mass of a distant galaxy. But it also poses a mystery: lenses of this kind should be exceedingly rare.