An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports a study on the Einstein ring nicknamed the Molten Ring for its “liquid” appearance and because it was identified in the constellation of the Furnace. A team of researchers used observations made with the Hubble Space Telescope and the FORS 2 instrument on the VLT in Chile of the object formally classified as GAL-CLUS-022058s to study its physical characteristics. The ring is actually a galaxy whose light has been distorted by a gravitational lens and, according to the study’s conclusions, is about 9.4 billion light-years away from Earth.
Gravitational lenses can be very useful for astronomers to see objects that would otherwise be too far away to be detected. The problem is that the images that reach the Earth are generally distorted. Einstein rings are quite regular, and what was nicknamed the Molten Ring is one of the most complete ever discovered. In December 2020, a photo of it was chosen as a photo of the week by the Hubble team but in addition to an evocative image, there was a very interesting object of study.
The Molten Ring study was also conducted using data collected in 2008 with the FORS (FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph) 2 instrument mounted on ESO’s VLT (Very Large Telescope). In particular, it was all data useful in determining its redshift. Another part of the task consists in reconstructing the original image of the galaxy, distorted by the gravity of the galaxy cluster that generates the gravitational lensing effect. According to the researchers’ calculations, the image was magnified about 20 times, as if Hubble had a primary mirror 48 meters in diameter.
The results of the study indicate that the Molten Ring is a galaxy about 9.4 billion light-years from Earth. The reconstruction of its appearance shows that it’s a spiral galaxy, like the Milky Way. We see it as it was in the peak period for star formation in the universe so it’s also useful to understand the processes that took place in a key epoch in the history of the universe. That remarkable star formation greatly influenced the evolution of galaxies. In essence, studying the characteristics of the Molten Ring helps to reconstruct the history that led the universe to be what it is today.
