This is the first time scientists have observed the mysterious phenomenon known as “Einstein zig-zag”.
Data from the world’s most powerful space telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, has revealed a strange occurrence where light from a cosmic monster passes through two different warped regions of space-time and duplicates itself six times before reaching Earth.
This intriguing phenomenon is called “Einstein zig-zag”, a hypothesis described by the scientist Albert Einstein many years ago. This marks the first time humanity has observed it in reality.
All six strange images are duplicates of a single quasar that is out of sight, created by a unique phenomenon – (Photo: NASA/ESA/CSA/Frédéric Dux).
According to Live Science, the phenomenon that duplicates is a quasar billions of light-years away named J1721+8842.
Quasars are essentially monstrous black holes that are so hungry that they swallow material with such intensity that they shine brightly in space, appearing from afar like a star.
In 2018, astronomers discovered four identical bright spots billions of light-years away from Earth and thought it was a duplication phenomenon caused by ordinary gravitational lensing.
Gravitational lensing occurs when light from a distant object appears to be bent as it passes through a warped region of space-time caused by the immense gravitational force of a closer object.
Gravitational lensing can be understood as a faulty magnifying glass that enlarges an image but can also distort it.
By 2022, researchers discovered that J1721+8842 had two additional bright spots alongside the original quartet, as well as a faint red Einstein ring.
The newly discovered spots were slightly dimmer than the other four, leading them to suspect that it resulted from a pair of quasars duplicating into six.
However, in a new study, a team led by Associate Professor Frédéric Dux from the University of Geneva (Switzerland) found that all these bright spots originated from a single quasar.
They also discovered that the new bright spots converge around a second large lensing object farther from the first, which also causes the faint Einstein ring observed in more recent images.
After observing the light curves of each bright spot for two years, researchers indicated that there was a slight delay in the time it took for the two dimmest images to reach us.
This suggests that the light in these duplicates must travel farther than the other four bright spots, possibly because the light in these images passes through opposite edges of each lensing object.
The research team dubbed this rare cosmic configuration “Einstein zig-zag” because the light from several bright spots with double lensing has moved back and forth while passing through both lensing objects – which are two gigantic galaxies.
This discovery helps address a prior concern when some astronomical observations suggested that different parts of the universe are expanding at different rates, threatening to undermine the foundational understanding of cosmology.
However, researchers believe this newly confirmed phenomenon will ultimately help them find the correct answers. This unique configuration will allow astronomers to accurately measure both the Hubble constant – reflecting the rate of the universe’s expansion – as well as the amount of dark energy.
