With the help of algorithms, a group of astronomers has discovered more than 1200 previously unknown gravitational lenses and thus their number somewhat doubled. They are now presenting their work in The Astrophysical Journal. The large number of finds now enables better exploration of fundamental aspects of our universe such as dark matter and the Hubble constant, the researchers explain. The scientists explain the importance of their study, explaining the importance of their study.

Curved light So-called gravitational lenses were predicted in Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Accordingly, massive objects bend light beams so that the objects that emitted them appear to observers behind the gravitational lens in a different place than they actually are. This effect could first be proven for our sun, which contributed enormously to the success of the theory of relativity. Since then, astronomers have observed hundreds of gravitational lenses. For the most part, however, these are galaxies or black holes, and in the meantime this has also been achieved in isolated cases with smaller objects. When the now presented analysis 2018 was started, let only about 300 Gravitational lenses were known.

The scientists set their algorithm on the data from the DESI observatory (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument) in the US state of Arizona. The neural network, executed by a supercomputer at the Berkeley Lab, scoured the gigantic amounts of data from the spectrometer for traces of gravitational lenses. The researchers believe that the technology was perfectly suited to the search. Thanks to the numerous results, astronomers could now carry out new measurements of fundamental aspects, such as the Hubble constant for the velocity of the universe. The last puzzled the research community.

Newly discovered gravitational lenses (4 images) (Image: KPNO / CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / Legacy Imaging Survey) (mho)