The supernova that we can see in the image exploded more than 9,000 million years ago and, thanks to the NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers from the University of California at Berkeley (USA) has been able to observe by first time in history, four different images of the explosion of this star .
The big explosion triggered a cosmic magnifying glass creating multiple images of the supernova, an effect already predicted in Albert Einstein’s famous General Theory of Relativity no more and no less than 100 years ago . In fact, this effect, in which we can see the multiple images of the supernova organized around an elliptical galaxy, form what is called “Einstein’s Cross” .
The discovery of this distant galaxy has allowed, in addition to testing the theory of relativity, to obtain information about the amount of dark matter in the universe and about the force of gravity. What scientists have been able to observe “is a relic of a simpler time, when the Universe was still slowing down. We can use that to find out how dark matter and dark energy have influenced the Cosmos ”, explains Brad Tucker, co-author of the study published in the journal Science.
This is the first time that a stellar explosion resolved in this way has been observed. For researchers immersed in the study of distant galaxies it has been “a real surprise” since the formulation of the theory of relativity celebrates its first centenary in 2015 .
These four snapshots taken by the Hubble telescope appeared a few days / weeks apart because some of the light is delayed as it travels through the dense dark matter and arrives at different times. In ten years a new image of the supernova will appear , astronomers estimate.
