space Cosmic Scale

Dozens of massive warps in space-time were found hidden in plain sight because they were 'too bright' for AI to see.

March 31, 2026

Original Paper

Euclid Quick Data Release (Q1). The Strong Lensing Discovery Engine F -- Bright and low-redshift strong lenses

Euclid Collaboration, L. R. Ecker, M. Fabricius, S. Seitz, R. Saglia, N. E. P. Lines, P. Holloway, T. Li, A. Verma, F. Balzer, Q. Jin, A. Manjón-García, S. H. Vincken, J. Wilde, J. A. Acevedo Barroso, J. W. Nightingale, K. Rojas, S. Schuldt, M. Walmsley, T. E. Collett, G. Despali, A. Sonnenfeld, C. Tortora, R. B. Metcalf, R. Bender, C. Saulder, E. Baeten, C. Cornen, D. Delley, K. Finner, A. Galan, R. Gavazzi, L. C. Johnson, L. Leuzzi, C. Macmillan, P. J. Marshall, M. Millon, A. More, L. A. Moustakas, J. Pearson, J.-N. Pippert, C. Scarlata, D. Sluse, C. Spiniello, T. T. Thai, L. Ulivi, Han. Wang, X. Xu, F. Courbin, M. Meneghetti, N. Aghanim, B. Altieri, S. Andreon, N. Auricchio, C. Baccigalupi, M. Baldi, A. Balestra, S. Bardelli, P. Battaglia, A. Biviano, E. Branchini, M. Brescia, S. Camera, G. Cañas-Herrera, V. Capobianco, C. Carbone, J. Carretero, S. Casas, M. Castellano, G. Castignani, S. Cavuoti, K. C. Chambers, A. Cimatti, C. Colodro-Conde, G. Congedo, C. J. Conselice, L. Conversi, Y. Copin, A. Costille, H. M. Courtois, M. Cropper, A. Da Silva, H. Degaudenzi, G. De Lucia, C. Dolding, H. Dole, F. Dubath, X. Dupac, S. Dusini, A. Ealet, S. Escoffier, M. Farina, R. Farinelli, F. Faustini, S. Ferriol, F. Finelli, P. Fosalba, S. Fotopoulou, M. Frailis, E. Franceschi

arXiv · 2603.28580

The Takeaway

Einstein rings—where gravity bends light into a perfect circle—are usually found by searching for faint, distant glows. By specifically looking at objects previously ignored by automated systems, researchers found 72 new ones, proving that space is far more warped than our current maps of the universe show.

From the abstract

We present 72 additional galaxy-galaxy strong lenses that complement the sample discovered in the Euclid Quick Release 1 data (63.1 deg^2) of the Strong Lens Discovery Engine (SLDE) papers A-E. It is shown that previous pre-selection of potential lenses, which excluded objects from the Gaia catalogue, led to missing several bright and low-redshift strong lenses, adding more than 10% new strong lens candidates compared to the previous search. In total, the catalogue includes 38 "grade A" (confide

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