CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Europe’s Euclid space telescope has detected a rare halo of bright light around a nearby galaxy, astronomers reported Monday. The halo, known as an Einstein ring, encircles a galaxy 590 million light-years away, considered close by cosmic standards. A light-year is 5.8 trillion miles.

A European Space Agency telescope has discovered its first "extremely rare" Einstein ring in a galaxy "not too far away" nearly 600 million light years from Earth.

The ring is made up of light coming from another galaxy almost 4.42 billion light years away and what we see from Earth is distorted by gravity.

A POWERFUL telescope floating in space has discovered an extremely rare Einstein ring of light around a nearby galaxy. The Euclid telescope, from the European Space Agency, captured images of the

Scientists have found a rare “Einstein ring” near Earth – stumbling on it almost by accident. The rare phenomenon was spotted in test images from Euclid, a powerful space telescope. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The ring is made up of light from a galaxy 4.42 billion light-years away and what can be seen from Earth is distorted by gravity. The distant galaxy itself has not been observed before and has not yet been named.

The structure is nearly 600 million light-years from Earth and is an early display of the nascent dark matter telescope's power.