Astronomers discovered a gigantic magnifying lens formed by the gravitational field of a gigantic accumulation of galaxies located at a distance of 3.3 billion light years. With its help, scientists managed to explore the Galaxy CSWA128, located even further – at a distance of 10.7 billion light years. This is reported in an article published in the journal MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMOMICAL SOCIETY: Letters.
Galactic cluster is so great that the strength of gravity twists the light like a magnifying glass. Because of the effect called gravitational linlication, CSWA128, which is located along the observer line right behind it, looks ten times more than it would seem from the ground in another case. Researchers could even see individual areas of star formation, which look like bright bunches.
Scientists have developed a method of pixel reconstruction of an image that allows you to determine the true form of the galaxy on a stretched and distorted image that occurs during gravitational linlication. The algorithms restore the distribution of the surface brightness of the original galaxy on the pixel grid, while the resolution is sufficiently sensitive to areas of up to one hundred parsec and less.