What Is a Supernova? Supernovae are dramatic explosions that take place during the final stages of the death of a supermassive star. Most stages of astronomical evolution happen over timescales far longer than a human lifetime, and even far longer than humanity’s entire history. Supernova explos
Artist’s impression of two white dwarf stars merging and creating a Type Ia supernova. Credit: ESO/L. CalçadaSupernovae are dramatic explosions that take place during the final stages of the death of a supermassive star.
Hubble’s sharp vision means that it can see supernovae that are billions of light years away and difficult for other telescopes to study. A supernova image from the ground usually blends in with the image of its host galaxy. Hubble can distinguish the light from the two sources and thus measure the supernova directly.
The top scientific justification for building Hubble was to determine the size and age of the Universe from observations of Cepheid variables in distant galaxies. Cepheids are a special type of variable star with very stable and predictable brightness variations. This means that astronomers, just by looking at the variability of their light, can find out about the Cepheids’ physical nature, which then can be used very effectively to determine their distance.
From Hubble’s supernova results, it seems clear that the expansion is nowhere near slowing down. In fact, due to some mysterious property of space itself, called, is causing the expansion to accelerate and this will continue forever. This surprising conclusion came from combined measurements of remote supernovae with most of the world’s top-class telescopes, including Hubble.
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