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.
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
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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
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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 that ...
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 million ...
Astronomy
Jan 27, 2026
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84
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
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93
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
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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
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209
This NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month brings us a scene from the distant universe. Pictured here is the galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+2223, or MACS J1149 for short, which is located about 5 billion ...
Astronomy
Jan 22, 2026
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163
With new technologies comes new discoveries. Or so Spider Man's Uncle Ben might have said if he was an astronomer. Or a scientist more generally—but in astronomy that saying is more true than many other disciplines, as many ...
Planetary Sciences
Dec 18, 2025
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20
There is an important and unresolved tension in cosmology regarding the rate at which the universe is expanding, and resolving this could reveal new physics. Astronomers constantly seek new ways to measure this expansion ...
Astronomy
Dec 5, 2025
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