In an astonishing achievement, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured a massive supernova explosion, which could be one of the first in the Universe.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has done an extraordinary thing! It captures light from a star that exploded more than 11 billion years ago not only as a postcard from the distant past, but as three stages from the star’s explosion to its fading in the span of time. one week period. However, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured three different moments in a very distant supernova explosion in just one snapshot. This explosion originated when the universe was less than a fifth of the present age, which is 13.8 billion years.
“It’s very rare that a supernova can be detected at a very early stage, because that phase is really short. It lasts only a few hours to a few days and can be easily missed even when detected. detected up close. In the same exposure, we can see a sequence of images—like many faces of a supernova,” said Wenlei Chen, first author of the study. research explain.
What is Hubble Space like? Telescope capture the explosion from the past
You must be wondering how it is possible to capture the light of a supernova explosion from 11 billion years ago. NASA Unravel this mystery! The space agency says that’s possible through a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. It was first predicted in Einstein’s theory of general relativity. In this case, however, the Abell 370 cluster’s gravity acts as a cosmic lens, helping to bend and magnify the light from the distant supernova that lies behind the cluster.
In other words, the process produces multiple images of the explosion over a different period of time, but they all arrive at the same time. The earth simultaneously and captured by the Hubble telescope in one image.
Incredibly, the red supergiant whose supernova explosion has been observed through Hubble is about 500 times larger than Sun.
Why is this supernova image important?
This image taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is the first detailed look at a supernova in the history of the early universe. Not only that, but this research will help scientists learn more about how stars and galaxies formed in the early universe. NASA says that these supernova images are also important because they show the early stages of a stellar explosion.
