Thread by @bymarieliis

1/ A digestible thread on gravitational lensing, the phenomenon which allowed us to see these funky, most distant galaxies yet in the JWST deep field image.

2/ Rays of light from a distant star or a galaxy can be bent by the gravity of a massive object, such as another galaxy or a galaxy cluster, as the latter warps the fabric of space.

🖼️#NASA/#ESA

3/ From our vantage point, the galaxy or galaxy cluster acts as a powerful magnifying glass that distorts and amplifies the light from distant objects behind it.

Pretty amazing, right?
🖼️@NSF

4/ Instead of the prev. glass illustration, I liked the poetic description from @esascience:

"Just as a wanderer in the desert can experience mirages, when light from remote objects is bent by the warm air hovering just above the sand, we may also see mirages in the Universe."

5/ "The mirages we see with a modern telescope like the Hubble Space Telescope do not arise from oases, but instead from remote clusters of galaxies - huge concentrations of mass."
(JWST hadn't launched yet in time of writing)

sci.esa.int/web/hubble/-/1…

6/ The #JWST Deep Field image shows the intriguing views of the lensing effect with the light of background galaxies stretched and distorted.

Some favorites on the right one.

7/ Gravitational lenses produce different shaped images as seen from Earth depending on the shape of the lensing body.
🖼️ @esa

8/ It gets even more interesting: astronomers can detect dark matter's influence by observing gravitational lensing.

A great popular science story in this here:
inverse.com/science/how-th…

P.S. if you're on the gram I post explainers like this as infographic slides 🌠🛰️🪐

➡️instagram.com/p/CgAUp1Bs-fM/
You can also find me on medium
➡️medium.com/@bymarieliis