Gravitational lens theory
Abstract
‘… imagine an observer, an isolated galaxy acting as a lens, and a quasar, nearly in a line. Two images would be formed on either side of the lens, and a third one would be formed near the center of the galaxy because the bending for central rays will be small.’ [Jerome Christian, in Physics Today, September 1980. ]This is an explanation of the gravitational lens effects that have been observed within the past year or so in images of a pair of quasars: 0957+561 A and B. The long-known Einsteinian idea of gravity bending light could presumably apply to the formation of a gravitational lens in space, so that light waves reaching a viewer on earth would be slightly bent and form secondary images that would fall on either side of the primary one, and thus there would only be an odd number of images.
- Publication:
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EOS Transactions
- Pub Date:
- 1980
- DOI:
- 10.1029/EO061i042p00665-02
- Bibcode:
- 1980EOSTr..61..665B
- Keywords:
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- General or Miscellaneous: New fields (not classifiable under other headings)