James Webb Space Telescope Captures Most Distant Gravitational Lensing: The Einstein Ring

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured images of the most distant Einstein ring ever seen, located 21 billion light-years away. An Einstein ring is a rare type of gravitationally lensed object that forms a complete circle around a closer object, resulting in a halo of warped light. The newly discovered Einstein ring, named JWST-ER1, consists of a compact galaxy acting as the lensing object and a more distant galaxy forming the luminous ring. The lensing galaxy is unusually dense, with a mass equivalent to around 650 billion suns, suggesting the presence of additional mass beyond dark matter. Further research is needed to understand the nature of these ancient, massive galaxies.