EARTH.COM - A team of researchers led by Hai-Bo Yu, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Riverside, has shed new light on the enigmatic nature of dark matter through the lens of an ancient galaxy.
The study focuses on JWST-ER1g, a massive ancient galaxy discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) last September, which formed when the universe was just a quarter of its current age.
Surprisingly, JWST-ER1g is associated with an Einstein ring, a phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The galaxy acts as a lens, bending light from a distant source, which then appears as a ring.
This phenomenon, known as strong gravitational lensing, allows researchers to calculate the total mass enclosed within the ring, which consists of both stellar and dark matter components.