Process / pipelineMass measurement
Strong Gravitational Lensing
Strong gravitational lensing occurs when massive objects (clusters, galaxies) bend light so strongly that multiple images of distant sources appear, or complete rings (Einstein rings) form. Proposed by Sjur Refsdal in 1964 and first observed in 0957+561 in 1979, strong lensing provides direct measurements of lens masses and cosmic distances independent of the distance ladder.
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Sources
- Refsdal, S. (1964). On the possibility of determining Hubble's parameter and the masses of galaxies from the gravitational lens effect. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 128(4), 307-311. DOI: 10.1093/mnras/128.4.307 ↗
- Walsh, D., Carswell, R. F., & Weymann, R. J. (1979). 0957+ 561 A, B: Twin quasistellar objects or gravitational lens? Nature, 279, 381-384. DOI: 10.1038/279381a0 ↗
- Suyu, S. H., et al. (2017). Cosmology from Gravitational Lens Statistics. Space Science Reviews, 212(1), 1-46. DOI: 10.1007/s11214-017-0427-8 ↗