James Webb telescope spies bejeweled 'Einstein ring' made of warped quasar light

A beautiful, "bejeweled" halo of warped light generated by a monster black hole takes center stage in one of the latest James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images. The luminous loop, which is strikingly similar to an "Einstein ring," is adorned by four bright spots — but not all of them are real.

The star-studded halo in the new image is made up of light from a quasar — a supermassive black hole at the heart of a young galaxy that shoots out powerful energy jets as it gobbles up enormous amounts of matter. This quasar, previously known to scientists, is named RX J1131-1231 and is located around 6 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Crater, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).

The quasar's circular shape is the result of a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, in which the light from a distant object — such as a galaxy, quasar or supernova — Travels through space-time that has been curved by the gravity of another massive object located between the distant object and the observer. As a result, light appears to bend around the middle object even though it is Traveling in a straight line. In this case, the quasar is being lensed by a closer unnamed galaxy, which is visible as a blue dot in the center of the luminous ring.

Gravitational lensing also magnifies our view of extremely distant objects like RX J1131-1231, which would otherwise be almost invisible to us. This magnification effect can create bright spots in lensed objects, which shine like brilliant gemstones in a piece of jewelry, especially when the distant object is not perfectly aligned with the observer.

This photo has four bright spots, suggesting four different objects are being lensed. However, the orientation and appearance of these jewels around the ring tell us that they are mirror images of a single bright spot, which has been duplicated by the lensing effect, according to ESA. 

Bright spot duplication is particularly common with warped quasars because these objects are some of the brightest entities in the universe.  

Related: Researchers solve mystery of inexplicably dense galaxy at the heart of perfect 'Einstein ring' snapped by James Webb telescope