How exciting – scientists have discovered a double Einstein ring!!!
You might be thinking – what’s an Einstein ring? When two galaxies line up, the one in the front acts like a lens for the one in the back. From our perspective here on Earth, the light from the farther one is distorted and appears as a ring around the closer one.
As you can imagine, then, a double Einstein ring is when three galaxies line up. Two rings are created around the closest galaxy, one for each of the two behind it. As you can see in the picture above, there is a faint ring around a brighter ring around the near galaxy.
Rare, as the odds of this occurring are apparently about 1 in 10,000, and amazing! More information here or see the detailed original Hubble press release.