Madrid, 12 June. (Europe Press) –
An international team of scientists recently discovered a supernova with gravitational lensing exceptionally rare, The group named it “SN Zwicky”.
Located more than 4 billion light-years away, the supernova Magnified nearly 25 times with the front galaxy acting as a lens.
According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, time and space merge into a quantity called spacetime. The theory states that massive objects such as a galaxy or galaxy. They can warp space-time.
Gravitational lensing is a rare but observable example of Einstein’s theory in action; The mass of a large celestial body can bend light significantly as it travels through spacetime, Like a magnifying glass.
When light from a distant light source passes through this lens, scientists can use the resulting visual distortions to see objects that are too far away and too faint to see.
The new discovery offers astronomers a unique opportunity to learn more about the inner cores of galaxies, dark matter and the dynamics behind the expansion of the universe. The researchers published their findings, including a full analysis, spectroscopic data and images of SN Swiggy. In Nature Astronomy Journal.
“The discovery of SN Swiggy not only demonstrates the remarkable capabilities of modern astronomical instruments, but also represents an important step forward in our quest to understand the fundamental forces that shape our universe,” he said. It is a statement The article’s lead author, Ariel Kuber, is also director of the Oscar Klein Center at Stockholm University.
Initially detected at the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), SN Zwicky was quickly flagged as an object of interest due to its unusual brightness. Then, using adaptive optics instruments on the WM Keck, Very Large Telescopes, and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the team observed four images of SN Zwicky taken from different positions in the sky. Confirmed that gravitational lensing is behind the supernova’s unusual light.
According to Andreoni, who is a postdoctoral fellow in UMT’s Department of Astronomy and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, supernovae like SN Zwicky play a key role in how scientists measure cosmic distances.
“SN Swiggy is not only magnified by gravitational lensing, but also belongs to a class of supernovae known as ‘standard candles’ because their known luminosities can be used to determine distances in space,” Andreoni explained. “When a light source is far away, the light is dim, like looking at candles in a dark room. We can compare two light sources in this way and obtain an independent measure of distance without examining the galaxy itself.“.
In addition to being useful as a measure of cosmic distance, SN Zwicky also opens up new avenues of investigation for scientists investigating the properties of galaxies, including dark matter (which does not absorb, reflect, or emit light). but it makes up most of the universe).
Researchers believe that lensed supernovae like SN Zwicky will be very promising tools for probing dark energy — a mysterious force that defies gravity and drives the universe’s rapid expansion — and refine current models that describe the universe’s expansion. Calculation of Hubble’s constant, A value that describes how fast the universe is expanding.
