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UNIQUE OBSERVATION
**Euclid** discovers a stunning Einstein ring
10 February 2025

During the early testing phase of instrument calibration and whilst looking at the first images they collected, the Euclid team of scientists and engineers detected an Einstein Ring. This 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 and acting as a gravitational lens, bending light from a galaxy far behind it. The almost perfect alignment of NGC 6505 and the background galaxy has bent and magnified the light from the background galaxy into a spectacular ring. This rare phenomenon was first theorised to exist by Einstein in his general theory of relativity.

Infographic explaining what an Einstein ring is. Credit: ESA

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