In recent images from the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have found something unusual happening in a distant galaxy - Something like it was not when Hubble last saw the same galaxy.
According to astronomer Mike Engesser, "We suspect it's a supernovae," Finding short-lived cosmic events like supernovae Webb wasn't designed to do.
But the newly-operating space telescope appears to be full of surprises. And it could open the door to the search for the death of giant stars from the first generation of the universe.
According to Engesser and his colleagues, this bright object is probably the first supernova observed by the Webb telescope.
The actual death of a star takes very less time, but the resulting fireball takes several days to grow and brighten, Then it gradually goes away over the next few months.
It's the blink of an eye in astronomical time, so it's a good fortune that Webb found out Soon after the supernova reaches its luminosity peak.
To do exactly the same thing with space telescopes, Engesser and his partner compared new information from Webb's NIRCam instrument to Hubble pictures of the same area.
They used software to search for any distinctions that might reveal what astronomers call "transients," objects that appear, vanish, brighten, or dim on a timescale we can actually see in real-time.
Old, distant supernova could assist astronomers with better comprehension of the actual texture of the universe and how it's expanding and growing over time.
Most physicists currently agree that the universe is growing and that that extension is speeding up.