The Most Distant Supernova

Supernova Superstar: The Most Distant and Important One Yet

By Michael D. LemonickApril 26, 2013

Astronomers can make a surprising amount of hay over relatively small observations. That faint hiss in your AM radio that just seems like spotty reception? It’s actually the cosmic background radiation pouring in from all over the universe. That subtle red-shift in the light from distant stars? Turns out the universe is expanding.

Now investigators may be ready to turn a small discovery into big science again. Researchers at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe in Japan have discovered an exploding star known as a type 1a supernova at the edge of the cosmos, and while 1a’s aren’t that common — stars like the sun don’t blow up that way, for example — they’re not all that uncommon either. Still, this particular 1a could help solve the mysteries of both dark matter and dark energy — huge stuff by any measure — and all thanks to a single optical illusion that has Albert Einstein‘s fingerprints all over it./.../