Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers pinpointed a blaze of light from the farthest supernova ever seen, a dying star that exploded 10 billion years ago.
The detection and analysis of this supernova, called 1997ff, is greatly bolstering the case for the existence of a mysterious form of dark energy pervading the cosmos, making galaxies hurl ever faster away from each other. The supernova also offers the first glimpse of the universe slowing down soon after the Big Bang, before it began speeding up.
This panel of images, taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, shows the supernova's cosmic neighborhood; its home galaxy; and the dying star itself.
Astronomers found this supernova in 1997 during a second look at the northern Hubble Deep Field [top panel], a tiny region of sky first explored by the Hubble telescope in 1995. The image shows the myriad of galaxies Hubble spied when it peered across more than 10 billion years of time and space. The white box marks the area where the supernova dwells.
The photo at bottom left is a close-up view of that region. The white arrow points to the exploding star's home galaxy, a faint elliptical. Its redness is due to the billions of old stars residing there.
The picture at bottom right shows the supernova itself, distinguished by the white dot in the center. Although this stellar explosion is among the brightest beacons in the universe, it could not be seen directly in the Hubble images. The stellar blast is so distant from Earth that its light is buried in the glow of its host galaxy.
To find the supernova, astronomers compared two pictures of the "deep field" taken two years apart. One image was of the original Hubble Deep Field; the other, the follow-up deep-field picture taken in 1997. Using special computer software, astronomers then measured the light from the galaxies in both images. Noting any changes in light output between the two pictures, the computer identified a blob of light in the 1997 picture that wasn't in the original deep-field study. That blob turned out to be the supernova. The red background texture is an artifact of the process of isolating the supernova.
Credits
NASA, Adam Riess (Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD)| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Hubble Deep Field-North, HDF-N, SN1997ff |
| Object Description | Supernova Type Ia in Hubble Deep Field North Galaxy 4-403.0 |
| R.A. Position | 12h 36m 48.26s |
| Dec. Position | 62° 13' 1.99" |
| Constellation | Ursa Major |
| Distance | 3 billion parsecs (10 billion light-years) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | Principal Astronomers: A.G. Riess (STScI), R. Thompson (U Arizona), R. Gilliland (STScI), P. Nugent (LBNL), B. Schmidt (MSSSO), J.Tonry (U Hawaii), M. Dickinson (STScI), T. Budavari (JHU), M. Livio (STScI), H. Spinrad (UC Berkeley), D. Stern (UC Berkeley), D. Sanders (U Hawaii), and S. Veilleux (U Maryland) . |
| Instrument | HST>NICMOS and HST>WFPC2 |
| Exposure Dates | December 23, 1997 - June 22, 1998, Exposure Time: ~ 6 days |
| Filters | F814W (I), F110W (J), F160W (H) |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
