{"id":2914,"date":"2021-09-28T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=2914"},"modified":"2021-09-24T02:51:53","modified_gmt":"2021-09-24T02:51:53","slug":"a-distant-supernova-appeared-in-three-spots-in-the-sky-at-once-and-it-will-likely-appear-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/a-distant-supernova-appeared-in-three-spots-in-the-sky-at-once-and-it-will-likely-appear-again\/","title":{"rendered":"A Distant Supernova Appeared In Three Spots In the Sky At Once\u2014And It Will Likely Appear Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Supernovae have long been the subject of intense study by astronomers and astrophysicists. From seemingly birthing the elements of the universe<\/a> to becoming what are essentially fellow remnants of end-of-life stars to black holes<\/a>, their existence in the universe gives us remarkable insights into how the whole cosmos operates. As such, scientists will always point their eyes in the sky towards these cosmic explosions, revealing the story of the star that came before them. With enough luck, experts can even spot a supernova as it happens\u2014or, really, happened<\/em>, given how long it takes for its light to reach their eyes\u2014giving them a unique perspective into the inner workings of stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such encounter was with University of Copenhagen astronomer Gabriel Brammer back in 2016. At the time, he was combing over images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope at one particular area of the sky. Comparing this to previous images taken from the same spot, he noticed that three bright spots of light went missing in the newer image, while they actually appeared<\/em> in the older images taken before. He took this as a sign of the three spots of light being from one of the strongest explosions in the universe\u2014a supernova<\/em>. \u201cIt was purely an accident,\u201d says fellow astronomer Steve Rodney, from the University of South Carolina in Columbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thing is, those three spots weren\u2019t exactly three supernovae that just coincidentally exploded at the exact same time; only one supernova\u2014a star from a distant galaxy codenamed MRG-M0138<\/em>\u2014actually went off. The three points of light were actually three duplicate images of just one supernova. But as far as we know, there aren\u2019t really any cosmic funhouse mirrors just floating around in space, ready to fool our astronomers by giving them multiple images of the same thing. As it turns out, this triple-image of a supernova was birthed by a phenomenon known to scientists as gravitational lensing<\/em>. Rodney\u2019s and Brammer\u2019s new study, formed together with a team of scientists, was published just this 2021 in the journal Nature Astronomy<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gravitational Lensing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gravity, being a distortion of spacetime caused by the presence of massive entities in space, can be simplified like placing a bowling ball in the middle of a stretched-out piece of fabric. The mass of the bowling ball causes the fabric around it to warp, creating a well in the middle. Any additional items that will be rolled into the fabric, given they are significantly lighter than the bowling ball, will simply roll around according to the \u201cwell\u201d caused by the presence of the heavy bowling ball. This, scientists say, is analogous to how compared to more massive cosmic objects like the Sun, lighter planets like Earth simply \u201croll around\u201d our star\u2019s gravity well, forming the planet\u2019s orbit around the star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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