SPT0418-47: lensed view to reconstructed view

This animation gives the viewer an idea of how astronomers reconstructed the true shape of the SPT0418-47 galaxy, from ALMA observations of the gravitationally lensed view of the galaxy.

SPT0418-47 is gravitationally lensed by a nearby galaxy, appearing in the sky as a near-perfect ring of light, shown at the start of the video. At the end, we see the image of SPT0418-47 that astronomers obtained when they used a new computer modelling technique to reconstruct its real shape and motion of gas.