Hubble

Distant Supernova Split Four Ways by Gravitational Lens

March 6, 2015

From release by Robert Sanders:  "Over the past several decades, astronomers have come to realize that the sky is filled with magnifying glasses that allow the study of very distant and faint objects barely visible with even the largest telescopes. A University of California, Berkeley, astronomer has now found that one of these lenses – a massive galaxy within a cluster of galaxies that are gravitationally bending and magnifying light – has created four separate images of a distant supernova. The so-called “Einstein cross” will allow a unique study of a distant supernova and the distribution of dark matter in…