Tom Skilling, in the Chicago Tribune, describes an Einstein's Ring as the most dramatic display of a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. He says that when 2 objects are exactly lined up, viewed from the earth, the distant object becomes a ring surrounding the image of the near object. I hadn't heard of it before. Is it something like an eclipse?

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most dramatic display of a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing.

Yes, but ...

You won't see an Einstein ring, or any other phenomenon of gravitational lensing, with the naked eye, or even with an ordinary telescope. If you could, the phenomenon would have long since been noted, as planets transited behind the sun.

Why can't it? There's only one nearby object big enough to that it's gravity might significantly bend light: the sun. And anything behind the sun will be swamped in the sun's brightness.

In short, the display is "dramatic" only to astronomers, not to laymen.

The great significance of the phenomenon is when one galaxy is behind another one. Any light from the far galaxy that is coming in our general direction will pass the nearer galaxy and, by its gravity, be "bent" more toward us. That is, we will get more light from the far galaxy than we would have gotten but for this phenomenon. And because we get more light, we can see farther than would otherwise be possible.

But galaxies (other than our own) are so distant that it is impossible to see them without a quite large telescope.

Here is a beautiful picture of an Einstein ring, with all the links you could ever want for more information.

So that picture was taken by an advanced telescope? It is absolutely beautiful.

Very cool - thanks for the link! I remember seeing a few of these pictures before, but have never bookmarked the site. It's bookmarked now!

Kalleh, the image is from the Hubble Space Telescope, very recently.

CW, the site puts out an astronomy picture of the day, and is searchable. It's fun to browse pictures from the last 10+ years, using the thumbnails in the site's "calendar" section.

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Einstein's Ring

Not to be confused with the two hillbillies who got married in the bathtub so they could have a double ring ceremony.

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Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:

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Einstein's Ring

Not to be confused with the two hillbillies who got married in the bathtub so they could have a double ring ceremony.

Is one of those hilbillies from North Carolina?

Tinman

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Is one of those hilbillies from North Carolina?

Tinman

I dunno - all my relatives are from South Carolina, and I've never been in eastern NC.