J1000+0221 was the most distant
gravitational lens galaxy known (up until the discovery of the
IRC 0218 lens
The galaxy cluster IRC 0218 (also known as XMM-LSS J02182−05102) hosts the most distant strong gravitational lensing galaxy currently known at a redshift of z = 1.62. The lens is one of the two brightest cluster galaxies and is lensing a backgr ...
galaxy), and remains the most distant quad-image lens galaxy discovered so far. The measured distance the light has traveled, including the lensed deflection, is 9.4 billion light years.
A very recent discovery by a group of astronomers led by Dr Arjen Van der Wel from the
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in
Heidelberg, Germany
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
, the results of which are accepted for publication on October 21, 2013 in the ''
Astrophysical Journal Letters
''The Astrophysical Journal'', often abbreviated ''ApJ'' (pronounced "ap jay") in references and speech, is a Peer review, peer-reviewed scientific journal of astrophysics and astronomy, established in 1895 by American astronomers George Ellery H ...
'' (arXiv.org). Using
NASA’s
Hubble Space Telescope, the astronomers discovered this quadruple gravitational lens dubbed J1000+0221 which would provide a further test for Einstein's theory of general relativity. These
gravitational lenses
A gravitational lens is a distribution of matter (such as a cluster of galaxies) between a distant light source and an observer that is capable of bending the light from the source as the light travels toward the observer. This effect is known ...
also serve as light magnification tools that help astronomers to look at distant galaxies thus acting as a natural telescope.
References
Gravitational lensing
Sextans
Astronomical objects discovered in 2013
Galaxies discovered in 2013
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