[HN Gopher] Two galaxies aligned in a way where their gravity ac...
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Two galaxies aligned in a way where their gravity acts as a
compound lens
 
Author : wglb
Score  : 237 points
Date   : 2024-11-16 16:48 UTC (21 hours ago)
 
web link (phys.org)
w3m dump (phys.org)
 
| wglb wrote:
| This is seriously cool. One lens galaxy is amazing, but two! (Too
| bad that this is not steerable.)
| 
| Underlying paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.04177
 
  | travisporter wrote:
  | Cool! Was hoping to see a magnification amount like 100x etc
 
  | hinkley wrote:
  | It would be cool if we some day had special days of astronomy
  | where every telescope is turned to galactic eclipses the way
  | they once did for solar eclipses.
  | 
  | The sky is huge and we are moving, so surely some would happen
  | in our lifetimes?
 
    | yreg wrote:
    | Surely any such eclipse lasts a long time. From the
    | perspective of our lifetimes it is static.
 
    | ben_w wrote:
    | Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely,
    | mind-bogglingly big it is.
    | 
    | It takes light, the fastest thing that can be, 100,000 years
    | to cross the Milky Way.
    | 
    | The Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy is currently in the
    | process of being consumed by the Milky Way and is expected to
    | pass through it within the next 100 _million_ years.
    | 
    | So, unless you're even more optimistic about life extension
    | technology than I am, not in our lifetimes, no.
 
    | consp wrote:
    | Isn't the idea to use the sun as a lense already enough? The
    | main problem being the focal point at 500+ au.
 
| photonthug wrote:
| So they were looking in the neighborhood, basically found light
| sources that looked like they might be duplicates and they were,
| therefore lensing.
| 
| Can we then find more lensing with even more compounding on
| purpose instead of accidentally if we sift existing data for such
| dupes?
 
| ck2 wrote:
| Fund the SGL Telescope!
| 
| https://www.universetoday.com/149214/if-we-used-the-sun-as-a...
| 
| Seriously, we could build that, it's at the limit of our tech but
| if it was either we walk on the moon again or build SGL, I'd pick
| SGL
 
  | dmix wrote:
  | I made this comment before but someone on HN made a good
  | argument is way harder than it sounds and given it's
  | size/cost/function it'd basically have to point in one
  | direction, it's not like an easily moveable telescope you can
  | scan around with.
 
    | skykooler wrote:
    | Yeah, you basically need to launch a new one for every target
    | you want to image.
 
      | Tomte wrote:
      | Probably even many, because it's energetically impractical
      | to stop at the focal point.
 
        | skykooler wrote:
        | The neat thing about a how an Einstein ring works is that
        | you don't need to stop, because rather than there being a
        | focal point, there is a focal line, moving directly
        | outward from the Sun. This means a probe could spend
        | potentially decades imaging the same target on its
        | outward path, if it had sufficient power.
 
      | Voultapher wrote:
      | I'd think to make it practical you'd have to have kind of
      | (semi-) automatic space based assembly infrastructure that
      | builds them and launches them. Launching these probes
      | individually seems like it would be impractical. Building
      | that infrastructure wouldn't be easy at all and I don't see
      | that happening in the next 50 years.
 
    | ck2 wrote:
    | "way harder than it sounds" is how we move forward
    | 
    | walking on the moon was beyond our limits when it was
    | announced
    | 
    | JWST was insanely hard and almost cancelled a few times, look
    | at it now
 
      | moralestapia wrote:
      | >we move forward
      | 
      | Do you work in something related to Astro?
 
      | dleary wrote:
      | This is true, but also, keep in mind that the JWST was
      | insanely hard and almost cancelled a few times :)
      | 
      | The SGL would be much, much harder than the JWST would be,
      | and the JWST was already stretching our capabilities.
      | 
      | The SGL needs to be 650AU away from us. Voyager 1 and 2 are
      | currently 165AU and 120AU away.
      | 
      | The JWST is 0.01 AU from us.
      | 
      | And you can only look in one direction after the probe
      | finally gets into position. Once you're 650AU away, it's
      | not really feasible to move "sideways" far enough to look
      | at something else.
 
        | Teever wrote:
        | The ratios between 650AU, 165AU, and 0.01AU are somewhat
        | moot.
        | 
        | In 1957 Sputnik 1 had an apogee of ~900km from the Earth.
        | 
        | By 1969 NASA was sending rockets ~385000km to the moon.
        | 
        | By 1979 Voyager 1 & 2 were reaching Jupiter ~5AU from
        | Earth.
        | 
        | We went from 900km to 5AU in 22 years.
        | 
        | If SpaceX achieves their stated goals of lowering $/kg to
        | orbit and rapid re-usability with Starship it will unlock
        | things like asteroid/lunar mining and space based
        | manufacturing which will allow the construction of the
        | kind of infrastructure needed to make distances like
        | 650AU achievable in reasonable time frames.
 
        | hehehheh wrote:
        | True but I'd be more convinced by an argument based on
        | tech and engineering constraints than extrapolating a
        | progress line.
 
        | paulryanrogers wrote:
        | Low hanging fruit is easier to pluck. It might be that we
        | cannot progress much further without consuming so many
        | resources that Earth is left an uninhabitable husk.
 
        | Teever wrote:
        | I agree totally.
        | 
        | That is precisely why we must transition to space based
        | resource extraction and manufacturing.
        | 
        | There are practically infinite resources at our
        | fingertips on the moon, the asteroid belts and eventually
        | the gas giants.
        | 
        | What we need to unlock this are the means to economically
        | launch a minimum viable self replicating infrastructure
        | into space to take advantage of this.
        | 
        | The feedback loops that will ensue should we succeed will
        | allow us to save Earth ecology, radically transform the
        | human condition, and unlock the ability to explore the
        | universe in ways that we can only imagine.
 
| munchler wrote:
| > the finding will allow other researchers to more precisely
| calculate the Hubble constant
| 
| How would a compound lens lead to a better estimate of the
| expansion rate of the universe?
 
  | mafuyu wrote:
  | From the abstract:
  | 
  | > This unique configuration offers the opportunity to combine
  | two major lensing cosmological probes: time-delay cosmography
  | and dual source-plane lensing since J1721+8842 features
  | multiple lensed sources forming two distinct Einstein radii of
  | different sizes, one of which being a variable quasar. We
  | expect tight constraints on the Hubble constant and the
  | equation of state of dark energy by combining these two probes
  | on the same system. The z2=1.885 deflector, a quiescent galaxy,
  | is also the highest-redshift strong galaxy-scale lens with a
  | spectroscopic redshift measurement.
 
    | magicalhippo wrote:
    | Not an expert, just trying to add some more context.
    | 
    | With time-delay cosmography[1] one exploits that unless the
    | source is perfectly in the center of the line of sight, then
    | the photons that make up one lensed copy have traveled a
    | different distance from the source than photons that make up
    | a different lensed copy. This effect can be used to measure
    | absolute distance and give an accurate measure of the Hubble
    | constant.
    | 
    | With dual source-plane lensing[2] one exploits that if two
    | different sources lensed by the same lens, one can take the
    | ratio of the measurements between the two sources and get
    | results that are significantly less affected by the lens
    | itself and is completely independent of the Hubble constant.
    | 
    | [1]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.10833
    | 
    | [2]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.03020
 
  | dleary wrote:
  | Disclaimer: I am a layman, not trained at all. But I am
  | interested in this stuff.
  | 
  | Our most powerful telescopes can see "back in time", by looking
  | at stuff far enough away that it took nearly the entire age of
  | the universe for the light to reach us.
  | 
  | I would guess that we can use this natural compound lens to
  | "see farther" with our current telescopes than we might
  | otherwise be able to see.
  | 
  | Our current best telescope, the JWST, can almost see to the
  | very beginning of when it was possible to see, somewhere
  | between 300k and 200M years after the big bang [0].
  | 
  | Somewhere in this time period, the universe cooled enough for
  | normal matter to form.
  | 
  | The JWST still cannot see the actual 'edge' of when this
  | occurred.
  | 
  | Maybe with this natural compound lens, we can see all the way
  | to the edge.
  | 
  | And if we could see where the edge actually is, then maybe we
  | can refine the estimate to a tighter range than [300k,200M],
  | which would give us a better estimate of the expansion rate of
  | the earlier universe.
  | 
  | [0] https://www.universetoday.com/168872/webb-observations-
  | shed-...
 
| waltbosz wrote:
| One fun thing think about is that these two galaxies are only
| aligned from our perspective in the universe. Viewed from a
| different location, and they're just two normal galaxies.
| 
| Also, imagine having the technology to send signals through the
| lens and get the attention of intelligent life on the other side.
 
  | kcmastrpc wrote:
  | I'm sure there are plenty of civilizations that have done this,
  | but on the time scale of the universe no one happens to look at
  | just the right moment.
 
    | Voultapher wrote:
    | But wouldn't the size and age of the universe also imply that
    | _someone_ has looked at just the right moment somewhere
    | somewhen.
 
      | drexlspivey wrote:
      | Don't radio waves weaken proportionally to the square of
      | the distance? No one would be able to detect them past a
      | (relatively) small distance.
 
        | shagie wrote:
        | Omnidirectional source, yes.
        | 
        | However, beamed sources don't fall off that way.
        | 
        | A search for optical laser emission from Alpha Centauri
        | AB -
        | https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/516/2/2938/6668809
        | 
        | > ... This search would have revealed optical laser light
        | from the directions of Alpha Cen B if the laser had a
        | power of at least 1.4-5.4 MW (depending on wavelength)
        | and was positioned within the 1 arcsec field of view
        | (projecting to 1.3 au), for a benchmark 10-m laser
        | launcher
        | 
        | For comparison, with our measly human technology...
        | 
        | https://www.ukri.org/news/uk-science-facility-
        | receives-85m-f...
        | 
        | > The Vulcan 20-20 laser is so named because it will
        | generate a main laser beam with an energy output of 20
        | Petawatts (PW) alongside eight high energy beams with an
        | output of up to 20 Kilojoules (KJ). This is a 20-fold
        | increase in power which is expected to make it the most
        | powerful laser in the world.
        | 
        | Or even five decades ago (TODAY!) ...
        | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message
        | 
        | > The entire message consisted of 1,679 binary digits,
        | approximately 210 bytes, transmitted at a frequency of
        | 2,380 MHz and modulated by shifting the frequency by 10
        | Hz, with a power of 450 kW.
        | 
        | https://www.seti.org/seti-
        | institute/project/details/arecibo-...
        | 
        | > The broadcast was particularly powerful because it used
        | Arecibo's megawatt transmitter attached to its 305 meter
        | antenna. The latter concentrates the transmitter energy
        | by beaming it into a very small patch of sky. The
        | emission was equivalent to a 20 trillion watt
        | omnidirectional broadcast, and would be detectable by a
        | SETI experiment just about anywhere in the galaxy,
        | assuming a receiving antenna similar in size to
        | Arecibo's.
 
        | WJW wrote:
        | Anywhere in the galaxy within the super narrow beam that
        | the Arecibo antenna happened to cover at the time, at
        | least.
 
        | ben_w wrote:
        | A perfectly parallel source wouldn't fall off with
        | inverse square, but all real sources are not -- and
        | cannot be -- perfectly parallel.
        | 
        | What you get from lasers is _very high gain_ in the
        | direction it is pointed in, but it 's still subject to
        | the inverse square law.
        | 
        | It's capable of being enough gain to be interesting, to
        | be seen from a great distance.
        | 
        | If you engineer it so the gain is enough to outshine the
        | rest of the parent galaxy in the direction it is pointed,
        | then that's effectively good enough because the galaxy is
        | also following inverse-square and you'll continue to
        | outshine the parent galaxy even as you and it both get
        | weaker, but it's still falling off inverse-square.
 
        | shagie wrote:
        | I stand corrected on the inverse square.
        | 
        | I still hold that it would be possible to send and detect
        | signals set with intention with not _too_ much more
        | advanced technology than what we have.
 
        | quantadev wrote:
        | The energy density drops off as inverse square law, but
        | the photons go forever. Radio is just photons (light) so
        | it goes forever until it interacts with something it
        | hits. The expanding universe will stretch it's wavelength
        | slightly however.
 
        | WJW wrote:
        | Sure, but the amount of photons as a percentage of the
        | background radiation drops as a function of the distance.
        | It's not all that far away in cosmic distances when any
        | signal from Earth is millions of times less powerful than
        | the noise level.
 
        | quantadev wrote:
        | > amount of photons as a percentage of the background
        | 
        | That's what "density" means. (i.e. the amount of
        | something per unit volume)
        | 
        | > noise level
        | 
        | A photon will travel thru space forever without losing
        | energy, unless it hits something. What noise are you
        | talking about?
 
  | snakeyjake wrote:
  | In order to use them as a signaling platform (how?) the signal
  | would have needed to have been sent several billion years ago.
  | 
  | At 10 billion light years away from the most distant lens it is
  | 100% certain that they are no longer in a gravitational lensing
  | configuration.
  | 
  | For a frame of reference, the Milky Way will be in the middle
  | of its epic merger with Andromeda in about 5 billion years.
 
    | buran77 wrote:
    | Even assuming a civilization can predict the alignment of the
    | lenses (galaxies), they'd still need quite a powerful signal
    | just to reach the first lens, let alone the second, and then
    | a potential civilization who may be listening at just the
    | right time on the other side. Hard to beat background noise
    | even at distances of a few light years.
 
      | montagg wrote:
      | But if you can do that, you know you have plenty of time
      | for a civilization to develop on the other end to listen.
      | 
      | Might just not be us.
 
        | buran77 wrote:
        | That's assuming the development of the two civilizations
        | starts simultaneously and is predictable to the point the
        | signal reaches the other side. That side of the lenses
        | may never see a civilization developing at all, or at
        | least not one surviving long enough to receive that
        | obscure signal.
        | 
        | These distances and time periods are unfathomably long. I
        | can see predicting the alignment of galaxies but
        | predicting a civilization with an adequate evolution
        | stage will exist at the right spot, at the right time is
        | very different. Any civilization with this power of
        | prediction probably has a level of advancement that makes
        | the difference between humans and amoeba look positively
        | non-existent, and probably wouldn't bother with
        | broadcasting lowly radio waves into the universe.
        | 
        | I can't imagine the universe and evolution of life being
        | so deterministic and predictable especially over this
        | time scale, no matter what tech you have.
 
        | lloeki wrote:
        | Over such timescales since you'd aim at another galaxy
        | wholesale you coud bet on Drake equation plus hope a
        | civilisation has survived long enough for a wide enough
        | window to be able to receive the transmission.
        | 
        | > probably wouldn't bother with broadcasting lowly radio
        | waves into the universe.
        | 
        | I bet we would be very glad to receive such a
        | transmission, even when knowing full well "replying"
        | isn't a realistic option (both due to technology
        | limitations and the RTT meaning that even if the reply
        | receives were descendants, they'd be so far removed as to
        | be entirely another ship-of-theseus civilisation)
        | 
        | A gift in a cosmic dying sigh could be motivation enough.
        | 
        | "Should anyone receive this, know that, as far as life
        | forms go, you were not quite alone and life existed
        | beyond yours. We're sending this knowing full well we'll
        | be long gone, but during all of our civilisation history
        | we could only hypothesise that we were not. We hoped but
        | never knew, may this transmission relieve you of the
        | doubts we had; _you_ now unambiguously know. "
 
        | usrusr wrote:
        | At that point you might just as well send out a high
        | power broadcast of Never Gonna Give You Up and
        | congratulate yourself on a job well done, indulging in
        | imaginations of fantastic ways of how it might get
        | received somewhere half a universe lifespan later.
 
    | rjurney wrote:
    | It's kind of interesting in terms of analytics... can we
    | predict when lenses will appear and disappear, from our
    | perspective? What might we do with that information once we
    | are more advanced?
 
      | WJW wrote:
      | 1. Yes it would be somewhat predictable to find these
      | lenses for a civilization more advanced than ours.
      | 
      | 2. Unless we find faster than light communication (which,
      | with our current understanding of physics is about as
      | likely as humans jumping to the moon) there is nothing we
      | could use it for other than definite proof that other life
      | has evolved in the universe. Interesting data, but they're
      | most likely extinct for billions of years already and even
      | if they're not, the compound gravity lens will have moved
      | out of alignment by then so we have no means to send a
      | message back.
 
    | 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
    | >In order to use them as a signaling platform (how?) the
    | signal would have needed to have been sent several billion
    | years ago.
    | 
    | Conceivably, a civilization could predict in advance that two
    | galaxies would form a lens configuration, and send a signal
    | that arrived just as the lens formed, correct?
 
      | consp wrote:
      | Isn't the universe (near) chaotic on those timescales and
      | you can only predict the general flow? Or is this me mixing
      | things up?
 
        | arcastroe wrote:
        | I mostly agree with you. The three body problem (3+) is
        | chaotic at those timescales. But I suppose all thats
        | needed for predicting this lensing is a two body problem
        | if they're isolated enough, which is much more
        | predictable
 
    | NetOpWibby wrote:
    | This time scale is nuts to me. I cannot fathom it.
    | Just...wow. None of this (humanity) matters in the grand
    | scale.
 
    | OlleTO wrote:
    | So conceiably someone could have sent a signal from the other
    | part of the lense some billion years ago and we "just" need
    | to figure out what to listen for.
 
      | reubenmorais wrote:
      | I don't think so, that would mean these "someones" would
      | have to be developed enough to send interstellar messages
      | through gravitational lenses when the very first solar
      | systems and rocky planets were being formed, around 10
      | billion years ago. It seems too early for technology at
      | that level.
 
  | augusto-moura wrote:
  | And technically they are only temporarily so, given enough
  | millions of years they will drift apart and lose the alignment.
  | 
  | Also, other stars can come to align in the future. Makes me
  | wonder if we can antecipate other cases like this and create a
  | future schedule of "To Observe" so future generations can look
  | at them. Although, these generations might be so distant from
  | ours that might not even be considered of the same species
 
  | yreg wrote:
  | Is it only one direction or does it work the same from the
  | other side?
 
    | M_bara wrote:
    | Should work the other way too. Physics and symmetry:)
 
      | ted_dunning wrote:
      | Yes in a vague sense. And No in a strong practical sense.
      | 
      | Lensing works in reverse except for time delays which make
      | the idea much more complex. The object's past is projected
      | to us now, but our past would be projected to somewhere
      | that the far object no longer occupies. Double lensing
      | makes this even less reversible.
      | 
      | When the light we are now seeing was emitted, the lensing
      | wasn't in place. In fact, the galaxies doing the lensing
      | hadn't even evolved to the state that we see them in.
      | 
      | So if we sent a response to what we see now, it wouldn't
      | make it back to the lensed objects.
      | 
      | That's just for single lensing. Double lenses are a massive
      | coincidence of events at 4 points in time and space
      | (emission, first deflection, second deflection and
      | observation). That means that light going the other way
      | wouldn't have the two intermediate points in the right
      | place at the right times so it all breaks down for us and
      | the object we see. There are some points that would be
      | double lensed in the reverse direction but the locations
      | and times for the source and observer have only very vague
      | correlation to our location and the location of the object
      | we see.
 
        | quantadev wrote:
        | A simpler answer is just what happens if you look thru a
        | telescope or binoculars "the wrong way" (backwards). The
        | correct way shows a "zoomed in" view of that you're
        | viewing, but looking the wrong way shows a "zoomed out"
        | view.
        | 
        | So lifeforms on the other end of this cosmic "lens[es]"
        | cannot use it to see us better, because in fact it makes
        | us look further away from them than we are, from their
        | perspective.
 
        | ben_w wrote:
        | If only relativity were so simple :)
        | 
        | If I understand right, objects further than a redshift of
        | z ~= 1.8 can't be reached by any signal we emit, and the
        | second galaxy is at a redshift of z = 1.885. But I don't
        | know how precisely (standard deviations rather than
        | decimal places) the distance to the outbound cosmological
        | horizon is being approximated, so it might be reachable
        | by a signal sent by us:
        | 
        | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Home_
        | in_...
        | 
        | Not sure what the practical analogy would be. You can't
        | use an exploding telescope?
 
        | quantadev wrote:
        | The question I addressed is "does the lensing work the
        | same from the other end". It's a very specific and clear
        | question, and the answer is "no it does not", because if
        | you reverse a telescope lens you get the opposite effect
        | (from zoom-in to zoom-out)
        | 
        | The question of at what distance and relative velocity
        | are the two locations so far apart that light can never
        | make it from one to the other (due to expanding universe)
        | is a completely separate issue.
 
    | lutusp wrote:
    | > Is it only one direction or does it work the same from the
    | other side?
    | 
    | The relationship is (must be) symmetrical. Were this not so,
    | it would violate a principle called "Maxwell's Daemon"
    | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon).
 
  | dmead wrote:
  | Thats probably not happening at that scale. I know this is the
  | premise of interstellar communication in the three body
  | problem. It's not real.
 
    | jajko wrote:
    | Not really, its premise is using our Sun, not some lens
    | composed of 2 galaxies (that would probably misalign well
    | before our signal would reach them), not sure how you came up
    | with such an idea.
 
      | dmead wrote:
      | Using things at that scale to talk? It's not a thing in
      | either case.
 
        | syndicatedjelly wrote:
        | This Wikipedia page suggests otherwise -
        | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens
 
  | 0xDEADFED5 wrote:
  | sheesh, everyone knows we'd just use the sun as an RF amplifier
  | first
 
  | JoeAltmaier wrote:
  | Similarly, eclipses are pretty much arbitrary. You stand
  | somewhere else in the solar system, nada. Or go fly over into
  | the shadow of whatever, eclipse any time you like!
  | 
  | And why do we ignore the most common eclipse, the 'terrestrial
  | eclipse'? Happens literally all the time. Also called 'night'.
 
    | z3phyr wrote:
    | When we do start getting anywhere else in the solar system in
    | reasonable time, then and only then will eclipses be "not
    | special events". Until then..
 
| bparsons wrote:
| If the lens curved light back toward us, could we see earth
| several million years ago?
 
  | wizzwizz4 wrote:
  | Technically? But the image would be very very very small, so
  | we'd need a detector bigger than the solar system (guesstimate)
  | to see it. That's to _see it_ : I can't imagine what it would
  | take to _resolve_ the image. The tricks in this paper are a
  | start.
 
    | westurner wrote:
    | To zoom into a reflection on a lens or a water droplet?
    | 
    | From "Hear the sounds of Earth's magnetic field from 41,000
    | years ago" (2024)
    | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42010159 :
    | 
    | > [ Redshift, Doppler effect, ]
    | 
    | > _to recall Earth 's magnetic field from 41,000 years ago
    | with such a method would presumably require a reflection
    | (41,000/2 = 20,500) light years away_
    | 
    | To see Earth in a reflection, though
    | 
    | Age of the Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Earth
    | :
    | 
    | > _4.54 x 10^9 years +- 1%_
    | 
    | "J1721+8842: The first Einstein zig-zag lens" (2024)
    | https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.04177v1
    | 
    | What is the distance to the centroid of the (possibly
    | vortical ?) lens effect from Earth in light years?
    | 
    | /? J1721+8842 distance from Earth in light years
    | 
    | - https://www.iflscience.com/first-known-double-
    | gravitational-... :
    | 
    | > _The first lens is relatively close to the source, with a
    | distance estimated at 10.2 billion light-years. What happens
    | is that the quasar's light is magnified and multiplied by
    | this massive galaxy. Two of the images are deflected in the
    | opposite direction as they reach the second lens, another
    | massive galaxy. The path of the light is a zig-zag between
    | the quasar, the first lens, and then the second one, which is
    | just 2.3 billion light-years away_
    | 
    | So, given a simplistic model with no relative motion between
    | earth and the presumed constant location lens:
    | Earth formation: 4.54b years ago       2.3b * 2 = 4.6b years
    | ago        10.2b * 2 = 20.4b years ago
    | 
    | Does it matter that our models of the solar systems typically
    | omit that the sun is traveling through the universe (with the
    | planets swirling now coplanarly and trailing behind), and
    | would the relative motion of a black hole at the edge of our
    | solar system change the paths between here and a distant
    | reflector over time?
    | 
    | "The helical model - our solar system is a vortex"
    | https://youtube.com/watch?v=0jHsq36_NTU
 
  | DoingIsLearning wrote:
  | @Dang is there a version of /best but for comments? The thought
  | experiment in this comment broke my mind.
 
    | slater wrote:
    | https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights
 
  | Danieru wrote:
  | No, because the light requires twice the time to travel there
  | then back. If Earth did not move relative to the lens, it would
  | work. Sadly we move, a lot, so what was here 2x ago was
  | something not-earth.
  | 
  | To see earth, the lensing would been to be focused on where
  | Earth was 2x ago. Still possible in theory, and you might even
  | argue just as likely as a fully reflecting curve. But you'd not
  | call it "back towards us". It would need to be "curved to where
  | earth was".
 
    | 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
    | Seems like if you could retrodict the position of past
    | lenses, and predict their effects, perhaps it would somehow
    | be possible to send a spacecraft to a specific location in
    | order to observe Earth's past.
    | 
    | The idea being that a spacecraft traveling at 99% of light
    | speed can't ordinarily catch up with light reflected by
    | Earth. But if the light curves, and the spacecraft can travel
    | directly towards where the light will end up (spacecraft
    | traveling "as the crow flies"), it might be possible to catch
    | up.
    | 
    | Same way I might be able to catch up with Usain Bolt at a
    | track event if he's forced to run on the track, and I'm
    | allowed to run across the turf in the middle.
 
| ziofill wrote:
| With all the galaxies out there, it seems likely that Earth
| should be in the focus of lots of systems of this kind. Hopefully
| in the future we'll be able to find and use these galactic
| telescopes!
 
| lutusp wrote:
| > ... "in a way where" ...                   ... so that ...
| 
| The elements of Style
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style) : "Make
| every word count."
| 
| > ... "acts as a compound lens" ...
| 
| Not really -- not the sort of lens we're familiar with, one that
| concentrates light at a single focus. Technical methods can
| exploit these chance alignments to detect objects otherwise
| inaccessible, but not as coherent images.
| 
| I often see remarks like this one -- "Acts as a compound lens!"
| -- but that's not correct. It's more like this:
| https://arachnoid.com/relativity/graphics/curvature_diagram....
| 
| Such alignments are more likely to produce what's called an
| "Einstein ring" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_ring).
| Very useful, but not remotely a "compound lens".
| 
| See Figure 7 in
| (https://arachnoid.com/relativity/index.html#General_Relativi...)
| for an interactive gravitational lens simulator.
 
| tempodox wrote:
| In case anyone was wondering, like me, what the MJy unit in the
| lower diagram is: It's Mega-Jansky. Just funny that it's then
| being rescaled by 10^-9. Why didn't they use Milli-Jansky in the
| first place?
| 
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jansky
 
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