Record collection gravity lenses discovered
24 Jul 2008
An international team led by Dr Leon Koopmans of the Groningen Kapteyn Institute for Astronomy has discovered the biggest collection of gravity lenses ever found.
This is reported by NOVA, the national Dutch research school for astronomy. The first research results will soon be published in three articles in The Astrofysical Journal.
A gravity lens works similar to an optical lense, but the distortion of images is caused by the bending of space and time, as Albert Einstein predicted nearly a hunderd years ago. In this case the gravity lenses are heavy galaxies that distort the images of other galaxies behind them or even multiply the images.
‘Using the powerful methods for analysis developed in Groningen, we can make detailled statements about the quantity of dark matter in these heavy galaxies’, Dr Leon Koopmans says. ‘One of the things we discovered is a very exact relationship between the total mass of these galaxies and their light intensity’.
More information
Dr L.V.E. Koopmans
Kapteyn Astronomisch Instituut RUG
Tel: 0031 - 50 - 3636519
E-mail: koopmans@astro.rug.nl