A research team with participation by Berkeley Lab physicists has used artificial intelligence to identify more than 1,200 possible gravitational lenses – objects that can be powerful markers for the distribution of dark matter. The count, if all of the candidates turn out to be lenses, would more than double the number of known gravitational lenses.
Gravitational lenses result from large celestial objects, like galaxies or galaxy clusters, that bend the path of light traveling from more distant galaxies. When these chance alignments are almost perfect, this creates false images that can include rings, partial rings, multiple images, and other illusions. Click here to learn more.