Close-up of the Einstein ring around galaxy NGC 6505
No matter how much you insist that words meant something different in those days, or the description is a poetic allegory or a metaphor the meaning of which is beyond us, the early verses of the Bible clearly and unambiguously describe a universe consisting of a small flat planet with a dome over it with the sun, moon and stars stuck to the underside of the dome.
This, of course, is a childlike description of what the authors saw as they looked up into the sky and saw what looked like a dome, and Earth was more or less flat, give or take a few low hills, so that is what, in their child-like naivety, they described:
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How the Bible's authors saw the Universe.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.Now, as we learn more about the Universe as we develop increasingly sophisticated scientific instruments for examining it, we discover just how childishly naïve the Bible's authors were and so show to anyone interested in truth that the Bible could not possibly have been written or inspired by the creator god described in it, unless that god wanted to mislead us so that it would take humanity another three thousand years or more to discover its lies - and what would have been the point of that?
Genesis 1.6-10
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1.14-18
Mind you, the same creator god could have told us about germs, atoms or electricity or how to make a steam engine or a motor car, but either chose not to or didn't know about those things, because the people who invented it didn't know about those things either. What 'science' there is in the Bible is no better than the primitive understanding of Bronze Age pastoralists.
What information do you have about galaxy NGC 6505? NGC 6505 is an elliptical galaxy located in the constellation Draco, approximately 582 million light-years from Earth. It was discovered by astronomer Lewis A. Swift on June 27, 1884.This is what scientists have recently discovered, although the idea of gravitational lensing and Einstein rings' have been known about for over 100 years, so this discovery simply confirms what the theory predicts - that light is bent by a strong gravitational field:
In 2025, the European Space Agency's Euclid telescope captured a remarkable image of an Einstein ring surrounding NGC 6505. An Einstein ring is a phenomenon where light from a distant galaxy is bent by the gravitational field of a foreground galaxy, forming a ring-like structure. This observation provides valuable insights into gravitational lensing and the distribution of dark matter.
NGC 6505 has an apparent magnitude of 14.6, making it a challenging target for amateur astronomers. Its classification as an E-S0 type galaxy indicates characteristics between elliptical and lenticular galaxies.
The discovery of the Einstein ring around NGC 6505 offers a unique opportunity to test Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity and study the warping of space-time.
For those interested in observing NGC 6505, it is situated close to the northern celestial pole, making it visible for most of the year from the northern hemisphere. However, due to its faintness, a telescope with an aperture of 20 inches (500mm) or more is recommended.
Euclid discovers a stunning Einstein ring
Euclid, the European Space Agency’s dark Universe detective, has made an astonishing discovery – right in our cosmic backyard.
Euclid blasted off on its six-year mission to explore the dark Universe on 1 July 2023. Before the spacecraft could begin its survey, the team of scientists and engineers on Earth had to make sure everything was working properly. During this early testing phase, in September 2023, Euclid sent some images back to Earth. They were deliberately out of focus, but in one fuzzy image Euclid Archive Scientist Bruno Altieri saw a hint of a very special phenomenon and decided to take a closer look.
The Einstein Ring, an extremely rare phenomenon, turned out to be hiding in plain sight in a galaxy not far away. The galaxy, called NGC 6505, is around 590 million light-years from Earth, a stone’s throw away in cosmic terms. But this is the first time that the ring of light surrounding its centre is detected, thanks to Euclid’s high-resolution instruments.I look at the data from Euclid as it comes in. Even from that first observation, I could see it, but after Euclid made more observations of the area, we could see a perfect Einstein ring. For me, with a lifelong interest in gravitational lensing, that was amazing.
Bruno Altieri, co-author
European Space Astronomy Centre
Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain.
The ring around the foreground galaxy is made up of light from a farther out bright galaxy. This background galaxy is 4.42 billion light-years away, and its light has been distorted by gravity on its way to us. The far-away galaxy hasn’t been observed before and doesn’t yet have a name.
An Einstein ring is an example of strong gravitational lensing. All strong lenses are special, because they're so rare, and they're incredibly useful scientifically. This one is particularly special, because it’s so close to Earth and the alignment makes it very beautiful.
Euclid is going to revolutionise the field, with all this data we've never had before.
Conor O’Riordan, lead author
Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Germany.
Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicts that light will bend around objects in space, so that they focus the light like a giant lens. This gravitational lensing effect is bigger for more massive objects – galaxies and clusters of galaxies. It means we can sometimes see the light from distant galaxies that would otherwise be hidden.
If the alignment is just right, the light from the distant source galaxy bends to form a spectacular ring around the foreground object. These Einstein rings are a rich laboratory for scientists. Studying their gravitational effects can help us learn about the expansion of the Universe, detect the effects of invisible dark matter and dark energy, and investigate the background source whose light is bent by dark matter in between us and the source.
I find it very intriguing that this ring was observed within a well-known galaxy, which was first discovered in 1884. The galaxy has been known to astronomers for a very long time. And yet this ring was never observed before. This demonstrates how powerful Euclid is, finding new things even in places we thought we knew well. This discovery is very encouraging for the future of the Euclid mission and demonstrates its fantastic capabilities.
Valeria Pettorino, co-author
ESA Euclid Project Scientist.
Infographic explaining how an Einstein Ring is formed
By exploring how the Universe has expanded and formed over its cosmic history, Euclid will reveal more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark energy and dark matter. The space telescope will map more than a third of the sky, observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years. It is expected to find around 100 000 strong lenses, but to find one that’s so spectacular – and so close to home – is astonishing. Until now, less than 1000 strong lenses were known, and even fewer were imaged at high resolution.
Although this Einstein ring is stunning, Euclid’s main job is searching for the more subtle effects of weak gravitational lensing, where background galaxies appear only mildly stretched or displaced. To detect this effect, scientists will need to analyse billions of galaxies. Euclid began its detailed survey of the sky on 14 February 2024 and is gradually creating the most extensive 3D map of the Universe yet. Such an amazing find, so early in its mission, means Euclid is on course to uncover many more hidden secrets.
AbstractIf only there had been someone who knew the truth to advise the Bible's authors, what an interesting science textbook they could have written. As it is, all we have is the best guesses of scientifically illiterate Bronze Age pastoralists with little or no education. Amazingly, there are grown adults today, living in technologically advanced societies, who have managed to remain as scientifically illiterate as Bronze Age pastoralists and think the book they wrote is just such a science textbook.
We report the discovery of a complete Einstein ring around the elliptical galaxy NGC 6505, at z = 0.042. This is the first strong gravitational lens discovered in Euclid and the first in an NGC object from any survey. The combination of the low redshift of the lens galaxy, the brightness of the source galaxy (IE = 18.1 lensed, IE = 21.3 unlensed), and the completeness of the ring make this an exceptionally rare strong lens, unidentified until its observation by Euclid. We present deep imaging data of the lens from the Euclid Visible Camera (VIS) and Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP) instruments, as well as resolved spectroscopy from the Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI). The Euclid imaging in particular presents one of the highest signal-to-noise ratio optical/near-infrared observations of a strong gravitational lens to date. From the KCWI data we measure a source redshift of z = 0.406. Using data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) we measure a velocity dispersion for the lens galaxy of σ⋆ = 303 ± 15 km s−1. We model the lens galaxy light in detail, revealing angular structure that varies inside the Einstein ring. After subtracting this light model from the VIS observation, we model the strongly lensed images, finding an Einstein radius of 2.″5, corresponding to 2.1 kpc at the redshift of the lens. This is small compared to the effective radius of the galaxy, Reff ∼ 12.″3. Combining the strong lensing measurements with analysis of the spectroscopic data we estimate a dark matter fraction inside the Einstein radius of fDM = (11.1−3.5+5.4)% and a stellar initial mass-function (IMF) mismatch parameter of αIMF = 1.26−0.08+0.05, indicating a heavier-than-Chabrier IMF in the centre of the galaxy.
O’Riordan, C. M.; Oldham, L. J.; Nersesian, A.; Li, T., et al.
Euclid: A complete Einstein ring in NGC 6505 Astronomy & Astrophysics(2025) 694; DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202453014
Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by EDP Sciences on behalf of the Euclid Consortium. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
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