Gravitational lensing as a research area investigates the deflection, magnification, and distortion of light from distant sources by intervening mass distributions, as predicted by general relativity, and develops methods to use these effects as astrophysical and cosmological probes. It encompasses strong, weak, and microlensing regimes, focusing on reconstructing mass profiles of galaxies and clusters, mapping dark matter, constraining dark energy via lensing statistics and cosmic shear, and testing gravity on large scales. The field integrates theoretical modeling, numerical simulations, and analysis of large imaging and spectroscopic surveys, emphasizing inverse problems, bias control, and statistical inference to extract cosmological parameters and substructure properties.
Astronomers using the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa have discovered the most distant hydroxyl megamaser ever detected. It is located in a violently merging galaxy more than 8 billion light-years away, opening a ...
Astronomy
Mar 2, 2026
1
4
That the universe is expanding has been known for almost a hundred years now, but how fast? The exact rate of that expansion remains hotly debated, even challenging the standard model of cosmology. A research team at the ...
Astronomy
Feb 19, 2026
3
154
Supermassive black hole binaries form naturally when galaxies merge, but scientists have only confidently observed a very few of these systems that are widely separated. Black hole binaries that closely orbit each other have ...
Astronomy
Feb 12, 2026
0
96
Sending a mission to the solar gravitational lens (SGL) is the most effective way of actually directly imaging a potentially habitable planet, as well as its atmosphere, and even possibly some of its cities. But, the SGL ...
Space Exploration
Feb 11, 2026
2
22
Under the leadership of the University of Bonn, a research team led by Prof. Dr. Pavel Kroupa from the Helmholtz Institute for Radiation and Nuclear Physics has discovered that galaxy clusters are about twice as heavy as ...
Astronomy
Feb 9, 2026
1
118
The mystery of dark matter—unseen, pervasive, and essential in standard cosmology—has loomed over physics for decades. In new research, I explore a different possibility: Rather than postulating new particles, I propose ...
A team of astronomers has employed a cutting-edge, artificial intelligence–assisted technique to uncover rare astronomical phenomena within archived data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The team analyzed nearly 100 ...
Astronomy
Jan 27, 2026
1
31
At the heart of our own galaxy, there is a dense thicket of stars with a supermassive black hole at the very center. NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide the deepest-ever view of this zone, revealing stars, ...
Astronomy
Jan 26, 2026
0
48
Scientists have created the highest resolution map of the dark matter that threads through the universe—showing its influence on the formation of stars, galaxies and planets.
Astronomy
Jan 26, 2026
16
112
The Dark Energy Survey Collaboration collected information on hundreds of millions of galaxies across the universe using the U.S. Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera, mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation ...
Astronomy
Jan 22, 2026
7
77
