With the help of Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope, astronomers have observed an ancient galaxy called SDP. 81 having Einstein's ring.

The astronomers said that the galaxy has the near-perfect Einstein ring. The ring is located 12 billion light years away.

"With the astounding level of detail in these new ALMA images, astronomers will now be able to reassemble the information contained in the distorted image we see as a ring and produce a reconstruction of the true image of the distant galaxy", affirmed ALMA deputy program scientist Catherine Vlahakis.

The images taken from the galaxy appear magnified and ring-like due to a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. Originally, the phenomenon was predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity.

As per it, gravity bends the path of light. If two objects are lined up just perfectly, the gravitational pull from one can bend the light coming from the other. Not only it can bend that light, but can also shape it into a perfect ring when viewed from earth.

In astronomy, gravitational lensing is used to study very distant, very early universe. As per the researchers, the galaxy started to form when the universe was just 15% of its age today. Astronomers said that the telescope was able to capture the effect in the highest resolution ever taken by the observatory.

The image reveals well-defined arcs that provide a hint of a more complete, contiguous ring structure. The galaxy was discovered by the Herschel Space Observatory. It is lensed by a massive foreground galaxy that is comparatively four billion light years away.

The researchers said that the image will help them study the actual shape and internal motion of the distant galaxy.