Webb Spots Ancient Supernova in a Gravitational Lens
Last month, astronomers focused the Webb Space Telescope on the galaxy MRG-M0138 and found something surprising: a supernova in the ancient universe, magnified for your viewing pleasure by the gravitational lensed galaxy.
When stars die, they release a huge amount of energy, which astronomers can observe as a bright light source called a supernova. The supernova imaged by Webb is the second spotted in the lensed region.
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Last year, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged Earendel, the oldest known star, in a thin gravitationally lensed crescent of stars linked together in space like the knots on a daisy chain. Webb also makes use of these lenses; in February, the telescope observed lensed light from Pandora’s Cluster (Abell 2744) and discovered hundreds of never-before-seen galaxies. Though other telescopes had observed the cluster before, Webb’s ability to image in infrared and near-infrared light allows it to see farther and detect fainter objects than other observatories.
The lenses often form arcs like those in MRG-M0138. Earlier this year, a different team of astrophysicists found evidence of axionic dark matter in Einstein rings—unique cases where the lensed light forms a complete ring in space, like a massive, forbidden cosmic halo.
Both Requiem and Encore are Type 1a supernovae, or “standard candles” with known absolute magnitudes, allowing astronomers to know their distance. Because their distance can be calculated, standard candles are crucial data points for scientists calculating the size of the universe and the rate of its expansion, which yields different rates depending on how it’s calculated. This discrepancy, known as the Hubble Tension, continues to vex astrophysicists.
According to Pierel and Newman, Encore and Requiem are the most distant pair of standard-candles ever discovered. When Requiem reappears in a little over a decade, scientists will have an opportunity to recalculate the Hubble Constant with new precision.
More: The Best Space Images of 2023
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