Further analysis revealed that a \u201cmassive dark matter halo\u201d likely caused this unusual cosmic pattern, the researchers report. Their findings were published on September 16 in The Astrophysical Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n Not a glitch in the data <\/p>\n As with many great discoveries in astronomy, the team was initially studying something else. In this case, the researchers had the Atacama Large Millimeter\/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile trained on HerS-3, a dusty galaxy located 11.6 billion light-years from Earth.<\/p>\n Everything looked normal until a pesky fifth object kept appearing in their data. At first, they suspected a technical issue on their end. But no matter how hard they tried, the fifth image wouldn\u2019t go away.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were like, \u2018What the heck?\u2019\u201d Pierre Cox, study lead author and research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, recalled in a release<\/a>. \u201cIt looked like a cross, and there was this image in the center. \u201cI knew I had never seen that before.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Well, that\u2019s not supposed to happen,\u2019\u201d added Charles Keeton, study co-author and an astrophysicist at Rutgers University, in the same release. \u201cYou can\u2019t get a fifth image in the center unless something unusual is going on with the mass that\u2019s bending the light.\u201d<\/p>\n Science takes a dark turn <\/p>\n Later, Keeton and his colleagues ran computer simulations of the gravitational lensing used to capture this five-pronged Einstein Cross. They were baffled to find that no \u201creasonable configuration using just the [four] visible galaxies\u201d fit the data.<\/p>\n Unless the configuration was hiding some large, invisible fifth mass, the image just didn\u2019t make sense. So they did exactly that\u2014they added some invisible stuff.<\/p>\n Specifically, the researchers incorporated dark matter\u2014the \u201cmissing\u201d mass supposedly making up 85% of the universe. Plenty of evidence suggests that dark matter exists<\/a>, though we only notice it through the way it influences visible objects around it.<\/p>\n Once dark matter\u2014in this case, a halo weighing several trillion times the Sun\u2019s mass\u2014was factored in, the math and physics lined up beautifully, Keeton explained. \u201cThat\u2019s the power of modeling,\u201d he added. \u201cIt helps reveal what you can\u2019t see.\u201d<\/p>\n A \u2018natural laboratory\u2019 <\/p>\n With the confusion cleared up, the researchers began investigating the Einstein Cross in earnest. Gravitational lensing offers a rare view of both the background galaxy and the dark matter surrounding the foreground galaxies, they explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThis system is like a natural laboratory,\u201d Cox said. \u201cWe can study both the distant galaxy and the invisible matter that\u2019s bending its light.\u201d<\/p>\n For the moment, the team has made several predictions about the physics of the galaxies involved, including their shape and kinematics. They also hope to pinpoint quantifiable limits on the dark matter halo and \u201cany associated stellar emission\u201d to \u201cshow evidence of substructures,\u201d according to the paper.<\/p>\n Readers of Gizmodo\u2019s space coverage may remember my deep appreciation for gravitational lensing<\/a>. This latest discovery shows why: the technique holds enormous potential for uncovering the universe\u2019s greatest mysteries, many of which remain hidden<\/a> from view.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When gravity\u2014an invisible yet ubiquitous force\u2014bends and distorts light from distant galaxies, Earthbound observers get a rare glimpse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[3508,49,48,826,12584,36936,314,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-150742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-astrophysics","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-dark-matter","12":"tag-galaxies","13":"tag-gravitational-lenses","14":"tag-physics","15":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Alma](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/alma-einstein-cross-five-images-dark-matter-halo-diagram-1280x724.jpg\")
The left panel shows the galaxy HerS-3, which is gravitationally amplified in an Einstein cross with a bright fifth central image. The yellow star indicates the position of the dark matter (DM) halo associated with the group. Credit: Cox et al.\/ALMA (ESO\/NAOJ\/NRAO)\/NOEMA <\/p>\n![\"Cox](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cox-et-al-einstein-cross-infographic-1280x720.gif\")
An infographic showing the mechanisms behind the observation of an Einstein Cross. Credit: N. Lira\/Cox et al.\/ALMA (ESO\/NAOJ\/NRAO) <\/p>\n