In 2015 the Hubble telescope captured some nice photos of a supernova known as “Supernova Hope.” Recently, these photos have been taken once more, however this time from the James Webb Space Telescope.
When the photographs have been analyzed, astronomers seen one thing uncommon.
Three dots.
Astronomer Brenda Frye of the University of Arizona, who is without doubt one of the lead writers on a not too long ago revealed paper (nonetheless awaiting peer evaluate) mentioned:
“It all began with one query by the staff: ‘What are these three dots that weren’t there earlier than? Could that be a supernova?”
The dots confirmed up within the photos that have been taken with the telescope’s gravitational lensing, which is a cutting-edge expertise for the area telescope.
Frye defined:
“The lens, consisting of a cluster of galaxies that’s located between the supernova and us, bends the supernova’s gentle into a number of photos. This is just like how a trifold vainness mirror presents three totally different photos of an individual sitting in entrance of it. In the Webb picture, this was demonstrated proper earlier than our eyes in that the center picture was flipped relative to the opposite two photos, a ‘lensing’ impact predicted by idea.”
The idea is that the three dots have been truly three totally different photos of the identical supernova. The gentle from that supernova took three totally different paths to get to Earth, which is why it confirmed up this fashion.
“Since every path had a unique size, and lightweight traveled on the similar pace, the supernova was imaged on this Webb commentary at three totally different instances throughout its explosion. Trifold supernova photos are particular: The time delays, supernova distance, and gravitational lensing properties yield a price for the Hubble fixed. The supernova was named SN H0pe because it provides astronomers hope to raised perceive the universe’s altering growth fee.”
While ready for the paper to be peer-reviewed, and for different astronomers to weigh in on what could also be inflicting this, the staff is hoping to have the James Webb Space Telescope take further photos of the supernova to assist collect extra information about this attention-grabbing phenomenon.
Space by no means ceases to shock us.
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