Astronomers Find a Rare "Einstein Cross"

Astronomers use powerful gravitational lenses to peer farther into the Universe than they could with their telescopes alone. A foreground galaxy acts as a natural lens for a more distant galaxy, magnifying it and often splitting its light into several versions. When the alignment is almost perfect, the light is split four ways into an "Einstein Cross." Only a few of these have ever been discovered, and now astronomers have found a new one using the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. It's both beautiful and scientifically valuable for studying the distant Universe.

#desi #gravitationallens #einsteincross

http://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12470

Southern Ring, a planetary nebula featured as one of the first images released after JWST launched. Subtracted much of the blue light out of the center of my version.

https://flic.kr/p/2oqdGEW

#astronomy

Starts With A Bang podcast #92 – Type Ia supernovae

New podcast, featuring Dr. Ken Shen!

For decades, we thought that they were exploding white dwarfs that crossed over the Chandrasekhar limit.

Here's why we don't think that anymore.
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/type-ia-supernovae/

Everyone's got that photobombing friend 🙄

Our all-sky camera monitors weather and clouds over the entire sky to help scientists with observations. But sometimes, it gets to monitor the local wildlife!

Right now, the all-sky camera is used for observations with the Auxiliary Telescope (and photos of birds, of course). Once Rubin is online, the all-sky camera's continuous cloud-mapping will help our automated survey software pick the best spot to point the telescope next!

Check out those views! 😎

It's always a treat to open the observatory dome—and not just for our staff who get these views firsthand!

...even our commissioning camera friend gets a peek 👹

📷:
(1, 2, 4):
@ChrisWalter/Duke Univ./DOE
(3): E. Serrano/Rubin Obs/NSF/ @AURA

#astronomy #Astrodon #observatory

RT @[email protected]

Shenzhou-15 docked at Tiangong space station just over 15 minutes ago, at 2142 UTC, China's human spaceflight agency has just announced. https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/RQG_JYgUiAHOTFun5HD65w

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/AJ_FI/status/1597711890976997376

Jocelyn Bell Burnell transformed astronomy #OTD in 1967 when she made the first observation of a pulsar.

She and advisor Antony Hewish initially dubbed the object LGM-1 (“Little Green Men”) for its regular signal, but soon identified it as a rotating, magnetized neutron star.

#astronomy #pulsars #neutronstars #JocelynBellBurnell