APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Galaxy and Cluster Create Four Images of Distant Supernova
Explanation: What are the unusual spots surrounding that galaxy? They are all images of the same supernova. For the first time, a single supernova explosion has been seen split into multiple images by the gravitational lens deflections of intervening masses. In this case the masses are a large galaxy and its home galaxy cluster . The featured image was captured last November by the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope . The yellow-hued quadruply -imaged Supernova Refsdal occurred in the early universe far behind the cluster. Measuring the locations and time-delays between the supernova images should allow astrophysicists to recover the amount of dark matter in the galaxy and cluster. With patience and luck , a fifth image of the supernova will also be recovered nearby in the next few years.
Astrophysicists: Browse 1,000+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library
| Date | March 9, 2015 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Image Credit: NASA , ESA , and S. Rodney ( JHU ) and the FrontierSN team; T. Treu ( UCLA ), P. Kelly ( UC Berkeley ), and the GLASS team; J. Lotz ( STScI ) and the Frontier Fields team ; M. Postman ( STScI ) and the CLASH team ; and Z. Levay ( STScI ) |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |



