Astronomers spotted two quasars that looked close to each other. The images of the same object are called Twin Quasars.
Light paths that created the images traveled through different parts of the cluster One path took more time than the other.
One image of the quasar flickered in the other.
There's a reason. The mass distribution of the cluster distorted the light and made it hard to see.
Fast forward to 22 years from now. An astronomer from the University of Valencia reported on their study of a distant quasar.
The longest time delay between multiple images of a quasar was measured by them for 14 years.
There is a role played by the galaxy cluster SDSS J 1004+4112. As the quasar light passes through the cluster, it can be seen that there is a combination of galaxies and dark matter.
The light is traveling through the lens. It is the same effect.
The four images of the quasar that we observe correspond to a single quasar whose light is curved on its path towards us.
We have to wait 6.73 years for the signal we observed in the first image to be reproduced in the fourth one since the trajectory followed by the light rays is different.
SDSS J 1004+4112 was discovered by the Digital Sky Survey. The Hubble Space Telescope took a picture of it. The first image of a quasar with its light split into five images was taken with a lens.
Light travels through a region of space with a strong influence on the light's wavelength.
There are some intriguing clues about the lensing clusters in front of the astronomer. We don't know of any structures in the universe that are as big as the galaxy clusters. There are thousands of galaxies in some of the cases.
Light from distant objects can be entangled by the gravity of the cluster and the dark matter in it. The mass of the stuff is spread out differently. The path of light can be affected by that.
Astronomers need all the data they can get to understand the distribution of matter. Dark matter is included. They are able to understand how it affects the path of light.
New data for the estimation of the Hubble constant is provided by measuring these time delays.
The mass distribution is one of the things that observational data can help understand.
She said that it was possible to limit the distribution of dark matter in the inner region of the cluster.
She said that calculating the time delay allowed for other discoveries, including the distribution of stars and other objects in the area of space between galaxies.
Calculating the size of the quasar's accretion disk will be aided by it.
The team's use of new light curves was described in a recent paper.
In collaboration with scientists at The Ohio State University, the observations were made over a period of over 14 years.
This article was published in the past. The original article is worth a read.
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