A spectacular cosmic scene captured by the Hubble Space Telescope (NASA/ESA) reveals a spiral galaxy that appears to have been torn into three parts, unveiling the mysterious presence of something that bends spacetime.
According to Sci-News, astronomers refer to the three-part galaxy event as “Hamilton’s Object”. In reality, the galaxy has not been torn apart; rather, an enigmatic force has created two distorted “ghosts” of it, tricking Earth-based telescopes.
The image of a galaxy that appears to be torn into three due to the influence of a galaxy cluster bending spacetime – (Photo: HUBBLE/NASA/ESA).
The research team, led by Dr. Timothy Hamilton from Shawnee State University, Dr. Richard Griffiths from the University of Hawaii (USA), and Dr. Jenny Wagner from Heidelberg University (Germany), states that this phenomenon is caused by the immense gravitational force of an unclassified galaxy cluster, which has warped spacetime.
With deeper observations using the WM Keck Observatory in Hawaii, they discovered that the foreground galaxy cluster is SDSS J223010.47-081017.8, located about 7 billion light-years away from us. Its spacetime-warping power has turned the region of space before Hubble’s view into a magical lens, amplifying and distorting images behind it.
This phenomenon was previously observed by Dr. Timothy Hamilton while studying quasars, or “standard candles,” which are often super-bright, super-massive black holes that “disguise” themselves as stars when viewed from Earth. Quasars also possess enough power to bend spacetime and distort images behind them. Therefore, similar phenomena are referred to by astronomers as “Hamilton’s Object.”
The study was recently published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
