Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

James Webb captures an extremely distant triple-lensed supernova

By

Since the start of science operations of the James Webb Space Telescope in July last year, we’ve been treated to a flood of images showing space targets from nebulae to deep fields. This month, Webb researchers shared a new image captured by the telescope’s NIRCam instrument which shows a both gorgeous field of galaxies and an important astronomical phenomenon called gravitational lensing.

The image features a huge galaxy cluster called RX J2129, located 3.2 billion light-years away, which is acting as a magnifying glass and bending light coming from more distant galaxies behind it. That’s what is causing the stretched-out shape of some of the galaxies toward the top right of the image.

The massive galaxy cluster RX J2129.
This observation from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features the massive galaxy cluster RX J2129. Gravitational lensing occurs when a massive celestial body causes a sufficient curvature of spacetime to bend the path of light traveling past or through it, almost like a vast lens. In this case, the lens is the galaxy cluster RX J2129, located around 3.2 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Aquarius. ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, P. Kelly

One of the galaxies being lensed is particularly notable because it contains something special. Toward the top right, the same galaxy is imaged three times, due to the lensing effect. Within this triple-lensed galaxy is an exceptionally bright event, a Type Ia supernova. These occur when a small but dense star called a white dwarf is part of a binary system with another star and pulls material away from its companion. This continues until there is too much mass in the white dwarf and it collapses, then it explodes in a hugely bright flash of light.

Recommended Videos

The light from these Type Ia supernovae is important for two reasons: firstly, it is so bright that it can be seen even from another galaxy, and secondly, it is (usually) of a consistent luminosity. That means that astronomers can look at a very distant Type Ia supernova and accurately work out how far away it is, which makes it useful for measuring cosmological distances. These objects are called “standard candles.”

This image captures an extremely distant Type Ia supernova, and that is useful to tell researchers how strong the gravitational lensing effect must be. To confirm their results, researchers also collected data using another of Webb’s instruments, its NIRSpec spectrogram, to measure the composition of the supernova.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
See 19 gorgeous face-on spiral galaxies in new James Webb data
This collection of 19 face-on spiral galaxies from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope in near- and mid-infrared light is at once overwhelming and awe-inspiring. Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured millions of stars in these images. Older stars appear blue here, and are clustered at the galaxies’ cores. The telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) observations highlight glowing dust, showing where it exists around and between stars – appearing in shades of red and orange. Stars that haven’t yet fully formed and are encased in gas and dust appear bright red.

A stunning new set of images from the James Webb Space Telescope illustrates the variety of forms that exist within spiral galaxies like our Milky Way. The collection of 19 images shows a selection of spiral galaxies seen from face-on in the near-infrared and mid-infrared wavelengths, highlighting the similarities and differences that exist across these majestic celestial objects.

“Webb’s new images are extraordinary,” said Janice Lee of the Space Telescope Science Institute, in a statement. “They’re mind-blowing even for researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades. Bubbles and filaments are resolved down to the smallest scales ever observed, and tell a story about the star formation cycle.”

Read more
James Webb snaps a stunning stellar nursery in a nearby satellite galaxy
This image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features an H II region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. This nebula, known as N79, is a region of interstellar atomic hydrogen that is ionised, captured here by Webb’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI).

A stunning new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a star-forming region in the nearby galaxy of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Our Milky Way galaxy has a number of satellite galaxies, which are smaller galaxies gravitationally bound to our own, the largest of which is the Large Magellanic Cloud or LMC.

The image was taken using Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument or MIRI, which looks at slightly longer wavelengths than its other three instruments which operate in the near-infrared. That means MIRI is well suited to study things like the warm dust and gas found in this region in a nebula called N79.

Read more
James Webb Space Telescope celebrated on new stamps
Two new stamps celebrating the James Webb Space Telescope, issued by the USPS in January 2024.

Two new stamps celebrating the James Webb Space Telescope, issued by the USPS in January 2024. USPS

Beautiful images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope have landed on a new set of stamps issued this week by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).

Read more