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Science 18 October 1968:
Vol. 162. no. 3851, pp. 348 - 352
DOI: 10.1126/science.162.3851.348
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Articles

Galaxies as Gravitational Lenses

J. Barnothy 1 and M. F. Barnothy 2

1 833 Lincoln Street, Evanston, Illinois 60201
2 College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois, Chicago 60612

Of all the galaxies in the visible part of the universe, 500 million are seen through intervening galaxies. In some instances the foreground galaxy will act as a gravitational lens and produce distorted and (in brightness) greatly amplified images of the galaxy behind it; such images may simulate starlike superluminous objects such as quasars (quasi-stellar objects). The number of gravitational lenses is several times greater than the number of quasars yet observed. In other instances the superposition of the image upon a visible foreground galaxy may simulate morphological configurations resembling N-type, dumbbell, spiral, or barred-spiral galaxies.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)