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NASA's Webb Opens New Window on Supernova Science

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June 10, 2024 3:15PM (EDT)Release ID: 2024-122
Space telescope image showing hundreds of objects of different colors, shapes, and sizes scattered across the black background of space, with several dozen objects circled in green.

Summary

Webb finds 10 times more supernovae in the early universe than known before.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is proving to be a fine supernova hunter! With its extreme infrared sensitivity, Webb is finding far-off supernovae almost everywhere it looks. Webb is ideal for identifying extremely distant supernovae because of a phenomenon called cosmological redshift, in which light traveling across the universe is stretched into longer wavelengths. Visible light from ancient supernovae is stretched so much that it ends up in the infrared. Webb’s instruments are tuned to see infrared light, making it ideal for finding these distant supernovae. Using data from a deep Webb survey of the early universe, a team has identified 10 times more far-off supernovae than were previously known. This study is the first significant step toward more extensive surveys of ancient supernovae with Webb.

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Full Article

Peering deeply into the cosmos, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is giving scientists their first detailed glimpse of supernovae from a time when our universe was just a small fraction of its current age. A team using Webb data has identified 10 times more supernovae in the early universe than were previously known. A few of the newfound exploding stars are the most distant examples of their type, including those used to measure the universe's expansion rate. "Webb is a supernova discovery machine," said Christa DeCoursey, a third-year graduate student at the Steward Observatory and the ...

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Visit NASA Science to view the full news release including article text and associated Webb imagery, graphics, scientific visualizations, videos, captions, text descriptions, and other information.

News releases highlighting the discoveries of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope are produced for NASA by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, under NASA Contract NAS5-03127. News release content is developed by the News Team in STScI’s Office of Public Outreach.

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