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An international team, including Rutgers University<\/a> researchers, traced the strange pattern and built the case for the invisible mass. <\/p>\n The analysis, led by Pierre Cox with Rutgers astrophysicists Charles Keeton and Andrew Baker, and graduate student Lana Eid, was published in The Astrophysical Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n The discovery began as a head-scratcher shared between colleagues and grew into a detailed investigation of how unseen matter sculpts light across billions of light-years.<\/p>\n Einstein Cross that breaks the rules<\/p>\n It all started with a surprising image. \u201cHave you ever seen an Einstein Cross with an image in the middle?\u201d Baker asked. The center is normally dark in these rare alignments.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Well, that\u2019s not supposed to happen,\u2019\u201d said Keeton. \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 An Einstein Cross forms when the gravity of foreground galaxies<\/a> bends and splits the light from a single, much more distant galaxy into four distinct images. <\/p>\n Nature draws a symmetric cross from one background source. A fifth image at the center breaks the usual playbook. It hints that the mass distribution in front isn\u2019t just the visible stars and gas; something larger and smoother must be adding extra curvature to space.<\/p>\n Clues from radio telescope data<\/p>\n The first clue came from radio telescope data taken in France. \u201cWe were like, \u2018What the heck?\u2019\u201d said Cox, who noticed the anomaly in observations from the Northern Extended Millimeter Array<\/a> (NOEMA) in the French Alps.<\/p>\n \u201cIt looked like a cross, and there was this image in the center. I knew I had never seen that before.\u201d<\/p>\n The target was a dusty, distant galaxy called HerS-3. Follow-up with Chile\u2019s Atacama Large Millimeter\/submillimeter Array<\/a> (ALMA) confirmed it: five images, not four. <\/p>\n At first the team suspected a glitch. \u201cWe tried to get rid of it,\u201d Cox said. \u201cWe thought it was a problem with the instrument. But it was real.\u201d<\/p>\n Einstein crosses and dark matter<\/p>\n With the data in hand, Keeton and Eid built lens models to explain the geometry and brightness of each image. The four visible foreground galaxies weren\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n \u201cWe tried every reasonable configuration using just the visible galaxies, and none of them worked,\u201d said Keeton. <\/p>\n \u201cThe only way to make the math and the physics line up was to add a dark matter halo. That\u2019s the power of modeling. It helps reveal what you can\u2019t see.\u201d<\/p>\n Dark matter<\/a> cannot be observed directly, but its gravity leaves fingerprints. \u201cWe only know it\u2019s there because of how it affects the things we can see, like the way it bends light from distant galaxies,\u201d Baker said. \u201cThis discovery gives us a rare chance to study that invisible structure in detail.\u201d<\/p>\n The odd layout isn\u2019t just pretty. It\u2019s useful. The lensing boosts and stretches HerS-3, letting astronomers resolve features they\u2019d otherwise miss. <\/p>\n At the same time, the cross and the central dot pin down how the lensing group distributes visible and invisible mass.<\/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 Eid, the project was a front-row seat to discovery across continents. \u201cI was thrilled to join this project as a graduate student, especially since it involved a fascinating lensing system that grew more intriguing as our models evolved.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCollaborating across continents and time zones taught me the value of diverse expertise and research styles in fully understanding a new discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n Hunting for new physics<\/p>\n Good models make risky bets. The team expects to see additional features in future observations, such as outflowing gas<\/a> from the background galaxy.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a falsifiable prediction,\u201d Keeton said. \u201cIf we look and don\u2019t see it, we\u2019ll have to go back to the drawing board. That\u2019s how science works.\u201d<\/p>\n Either outcome teaches something: confirmation validates the mass map; a mismatch sends the team hunting for new physics or overlooked structure.<\/p>\n The universe bends its rules<\/p>\n The research highlights why gravitational lensing is such a powerful probe of dark matter. It lets astronomers infer the shape and heft of invisible halos that wrap galaxies and groups. <\/p>\n It also showcases global infrastructure that makes these insights possible.<\/p>\n \u201cALMA in Chile and the Very Large Array<\/a> (VLA) in New Mexico are supported by the National Science Foundation, and the Hubble Space Telescope<\/a> is supported by NASA; all played vital roles in this work,\u201d Baker said. \u201cWe hope they will continue to enable such discoveries well into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n A tiny, impossible-looking dot in the middle of a cosmic cross turned out to be a beacon from the dark. To make it appear, the universe needed more gravity<\/a> than starlight accounts for \u2013 a sweeping halo of dark matter.<\/p>\n With clever modeling and far-flung telescopes, researchers turned a curiosity into a map of the invisible, and a single system into a classroom for studying both a distant galaxy and the hidden scaffolding of the cosmos.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astronomers spotted an \u201cEinstein Cross\u201d with a twist: a faint fifth image glowing at the center. That extra…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[49,48,314,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-156568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156568","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=156568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/einstein-cross_rare-configuration_alma_Rutgers_1s.webp.webp\")
<\/a>A rare cosmic configuration: An Einstein Cross with five points of light, instead of the usual four, has been discovered by scientists. Click image to enlarge. Credit: P. Cox et al. \u2013 ALMA (ESO\/NAOJ\/NRAO)