Scientists discover a surprising astronomical phenomenon near the Milky Way

The Euclidean Space Telescope, on a mission to investigate the dark Universe, has captured a rare and impressive Einstein Ring near Earth, the result of gravitational distortion of light from a distant galaxy.

The Euclid telescope discovers a rare Einstein ring near Earth in the galaxy NGC 6505, the result of gravitational distortion of light from a distant galaxy.

The Euclid mission, launched on July 1, 2023 to explore the dark Universe, is yielding impressive discoveries. During an initial phase of testing in September 2023, a probe sent deliberately out-of-focus images back to Earth. However, in some of these blurred images, scientist Bruno Altieri noticed something special.

According to Altieri, "From the first observations, there were indications that the mission had captured a unique phenomenon ." But after the mission took more photographs of the area, the astronomers' suspicions were confirmed: there was a perfect Einstein ring.

This strange phenomenon, known as Einstein's Angel, is located in the galaxy NGC 6505, about 590 million light years from Earth , a galaxy very close to us in cosmic terms. However, the structure had not yet been detected by scientists.

Galaxy NGC 6505.
Galaxy NGC 6505, where the Einstein ring was discovered (visible in the center of the image).

The ring is formed by light from a more distant galaxy, located more than 4 billion light-years away. This light has been distorted by the gravity of the galaxy NGC 6505, creating a dazzling ring of light . The background galaxy has never been observed before and is still unnamed.

An Einstein ring is an example of a strong gravitational lens. All cases of strong gravitational lensing are special because they are rare and extremely useful for science. This one is particularly special because of its proximity to us and also because of the alignment, which makes it beautiful to observe.

How is an Einstein ring formed?

Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that gravity can bend the path of light around extremely massive objects in space, acting like a giant lens. When the alignment is perfect, the light from the background galaxy bends and forms a ring around the foreground object.

These rings are a valuable "laboratory" for scientists, as they help them study the expansion of the Universe, detect the effects of dark matter, and investigate galaxies that would otherwise never be observed by us.

The galaxy NGC 6505 has been known since 1884, but this ring has never been observed before. Thanks to the Euclid mission and its high-resolution images, we will be able to discover new things even in places in the Universe that we thought we knew well.

Illustration of the formation of an Einstein ring (image adapted and translated from the original by ESA)

The Euclid mission aims to map more than a third of the sky, observing billions of galaxies, some extremely distant, up to 10 billion light-years away. The expectation is to identify around 100,000 strong gravitational lenses, an impressive number considering that less than a thousand were known at the start of the mission.

Despite the discovery of this spectacular Einstein ring, Euclid's main mission is to investigate the very subtle effects of the weaker gravitational lensing effect, where background galaxies appear only slightly elongated or shifted. To do this, scientists will need to analyze billions of galaxies.

The mission began its detailed study on February 14, 2024 , and is gradually creating the largest three-dimensional map of the Universe. Scientists are excited about such an incredible discovery at such an early stage of the mission because the best is undoubtedly yet to come.

News reference:

Euclid: A complete Einstein ring in NGC 6505 . Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2025. CM O'Riordan et al.

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