James Webb Space Telescope Feed Post

Webb spots a second lensed supernova in a distant galaxy

Left: In 2016 the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope spotted a multiply imaged supernova, nicknamed Supernova Requiem, in a distant galaxy lensed by the intervening galaxy cluster MACS J0138. Three images of the supernova are visible, and a fourth image is expected to arrive in 2035. In this near-infrared image, light at 1.05 microns is represented in blue and 1.60 microns is orange. Right: In November 2023 the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope identified a second multiply imaged supernova in the same galaxy using its NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument. This is the first known system to produce more than one multiply-imaged supernova. Credit: Hubble image: NASA, ESA, STScI, Steve A. Rodney (University of South Carolina) and Gabriel Brammer (Cosmic Dawn Center/Niels Bohr Institute/University of Copenhagen);Webb image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Justin Pierel (STScI) and Andrew Newman (Carnegie Institution for Science).