A strange “distorted” supernova was seen

Astronomers have discovered a supernova called SN 2022qmx or SN Zwicky. The results of the study were published in the journal Nature Astronomy, writes Live Science.

It was noted that the light from this supernova, located four billion light-years away, was bent and magnified by the influence of a large galaxy 2.5 billion years from Earth.

“A supernova explosion refers to a type of cosmic explosion as a type Ia supernova. This means that a white dwarf star exploded very far from us, which is the final stage of the evolution of stars similar to the Sun . That means, in fact, it is a dead star, because it is the ‘cosmic corpse’ of another, larger star,” the astronomers said.

They claim that when the light from the supernova passes through the lensing galaxy, its brightness increases about 25 times, but at the same time the image of the supernova splits into four separate parts.

This happened because space and ground telescopes received light from a supernova moving through space in four different ways. That is, in fact, this light is bent so that four different images of a supernova appear simultaneously.

“But it turns out that the two images of the supernova differ from the other two in brightness. One is 4 times brighter, and the second is 2 times brighter. Astronomers suggested that this effect could arise because in microlensing, that is, large. The stars in the galaxy itself also bent additional light from the supernova and increased its brightness,” the scientists added.

Recall that early astronomers discovered a new planet orbiting a double star.