and the question is are there concentric rings as lensing effects that's what my
eyes see and if so why are there multiple rings yes the answer is yes absolutely and
the reason we have those lens segments is because the cluster of galaxies is a large mass and any
large mass bends light that passes nearby and it bends light in a way that's very similar to
a lens in in optics the image of the more distant object in this case a more distant galaxy
is magnified and so that's why we're able to see those more distant galaxies using the
the wonderful natural gravitational lens of the cluster and again that's because of the the large
mass of the cluster if we have a situation where we're off over here and this is a cluster of
galaxies between us and a distant galaxy the light from the distant galaxy passes nearby the cluster
and it gets bent around the cluster as it travels then then we over here detect that light and we
see the lens damage of the more distant galaxy in addition to the the cluster of galaxies just as we
saw on that james webb space telescope image the type of image that we see depends on the geometry
so you know if the distant galaxy is not lined up at all then the light from that distant galaxy
just travels through space and it's not affected at all by the cluster of galaxies on the other
hand if the distant galaxy is lined up perfectly that is between us as the observer the cluster
the lens and the distant galaxy if the alignment is perfect then the image that we see on earth is
what's called an einstein ring and it's a perfectly circular ring of light that
comes from that distant lensed galaxy if the alignment is slightly off from perfect
we won't see a perfect einstein ring but rather we'll see little segments along that ring for any
particular object and that's what we saw in the james webb space telescope image we see the little
arcs of lensed distant galaxies so yes that is a lens effect and it's it's absolutely caused
by the gravitational lens of of the cluster the intervening cluster of galaxies another question
asked whether we could get multiple images of that distant galaxy and yes that's possible as
well again depending on alignment we might have light passing the cluster of galaxies in this
orientation and more or less simultaneously passing on the other side so that we on earth
see two arcs of image lensed uh image from of the distant galaxy that is the same galaxy and and
absolutely this is possible and we observe this all the time in these lensed images the question
was whether there was enough time delay between those two light travel paths as they as they
passed by the cluster you know one side and and the other side whether there's enough time
billions of years that would allow us to see the distant galaxy at different
stages in its in its history and the the short answer to that is that we might see the
distant galaxy at different times because the light travel time of those two paths might be
different but they're not going to be different by billions of years we might have a couple of days
light days of difference in travel time and sure we can look at those two images and see
if there's been any change on that time frame but it's not going to be billions of years
we can use that however to study the more distant object uh in a in a better and different way just
not in a way that shows us a significant change over a significant period of time