Seeing Triple (Annotated) | ESA/Webb

This remark from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb House Telescope comprises three completely different photos of the identical supernova-hosting galaxy, all of which have been created by a colossal gravitational lens. Gravitational lensing happens when an enormous celestial physique causes a adequate curvature of spacetime to bend the trail of sunshine travelling previous or by it, virtually like an enormous lens. On this case, the lens is the galaxy cluster RX J2129, situated round 3.2 billion light-years from Earth within the constellation Aquarius. This annotated picture of the cluster highlights the three photos of the lensed galaxy, together with the one the place the supernova was detected.

Astronomers found the supernova within the triply-lensed background galaxy utilizing observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble House Telescope, they usually suspected that they’d discovered a really distant Kind Ia supernova. These supernovae at all times produce a reasonably constant luminosity — on the identical distance, one appears as vibrant as another — which makes them significantly useful to astronomers. As their distance from Earth is proportional to how dim they seem within the evening sky, objects with recognized brightness can be utilized as ‘commonplace candles’ to measure astronomical distances. 

The gravitational lens has created three lensed photos of the background galaxy, which aren’t uniform in dimension, place or age. As a result of mass within the galaxy cluster is distributed erratically, rays of sunshine emitted by the supernova are bent by the lens in numerous quantities, and they also take longer or shorter paths to the viewer — leading to separate photos. The sunshine that took the longest path provides us the oldest picture of the galaxy, wherein the supernova remains to be seen. The following picture is of the galaxy because it seems roughly 320 days later than the primary one, and the final picture roughly 1000 days after the primary. At each later cut-off dates, the supernova has already pale from view. The identify for the transient is AT 2022riv.

This remark was captured by Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera to measure the brightness of the lensed supernova. As a part of the identical programme, NIRSpec spectroscopy of the supernova was additionally obtained, which can permit comparability of this distant supernova to Kind Ia supernovae within the close by Universe. This is a vital technique to confirm that one in every of astronomers’ tried-and-tested strategies of measuring huge distances works as anticipated.

[Image description: The main image shows a large elliptical galaxy, surrounded by many small similar galaxies in a cluster, and background stars and galaxies. Three smaller pull-outs show three lensed images of a background galaxy, close up.]

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