Lensed Supernova in Abell 370
About This Image
Release Date
November 09, 2022 11:00AM (EST)Read the Release
2022-054Permissions
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Caption
Through a phenomenon called gravitational lensing, three different moments in a far-off supernova explosion were captured in a single snapshot by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The light from the supernova, which was located behind the galaxy cluster Abell 370, was multiply lensed by the cluster's immense gravity. This light took three different paths through the cosmic lens of the massive cluster. The three paths were three different lengths and affected to different degrees by the slowing of time and curvature of space due to the cluster, so when the light arrived at Hubble (on the same day in December 2010), the supernova appeared at three different stages of evolution.
The left panel shows the portion of Abell 370 where the multiple images of the supernova appeared. Panel A, a composite of Hubble observations from 2011 to 2016, shows the locations of the multiply imaged host galaxy after the supernova faded. Panel B, a Hubble picture from December 2010, shows the three images of the host galaxy and the supernova at different phases in its evolution. Panel C, which subtracts the image in Panel B from that in Panel A, shows three different faces of the evolving supernova. Using a similar image subtraction process for multiple filters of data, Panel D shows the different colors of the cooling supernova at three different stages in its evolution.
Credits
SCIENCE:
NASA, ESA, STScI, Wenlei
Chen
(UMN), Patrick
Kelly
(UMN), Hubble Frontier Fields
Keywords
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Abell 370 |
| Object Description | Galaxy Cluster and Gratationally Lensed Supernova |
| R.A. Position | 02:39:55.29 |
| Dec. Position | -01:33:51.50 |
| Constellation | Cetus |
| Distance | 4 billion light-years |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | These data are from the HST proposals 11108 (PI: E. Hu, University of Hawaii), 11507 (PI: K. Noll, GSFC), 11591 (PI: J.-P. Kneib, Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille), 13459 (PI: T. Treu, UCLA), 13790 (PI: S. Rodney, JHU), 14038 (PI: J. Lotz, STScI), and 14216 (R. Kirshner, Harvard University). |
| Instrument | HST>ACS/WFC and HST>WFC3/IR |
| Exposure Dates | September 2009 - February 2015 |
| Filters | ACS/WFC: F435W, F606W, and F814W; WFC3/IR: F105W, F125W, F140W, and F160W |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | Blue: F435W + F606W Green: F814W + F105W Red: F125W + F140W + F160W |
| Compass Image |  |
| 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. |