Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, B. Frye (U Arizona), R. Windhorst (ASU) , P. Kamieneski (ASU) Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) image of the galaxy cluster PLCK G165.7+67.0, also known as G165, on the left shows the magnifying effect a foreground cluster can have on the distant universe beyond. The zoomed region on the right shows supernova H0pe triply imaged (labeled with white dashed circles) due to gravitational lensing. The lens, consisting of a cluster of galaxies that is situated between the supernova and us, bends the supernova’s light into multiple images.

To achieve three images, the light traveled along three different paths. Since each path had a different length, and light traveled at the same speed, the supernova was imaged in this Webb observation at three different times during its explosion. The multiply-imaged supernova offers astronomers a unique way to calculate a new value for the Hubble constant — the rate at which the universe is accelerating.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://webbtelescope.org/science/early-highlights

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

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