05-30-2019, 06:01 PM
"Subaru Telescope captures 1800 new supernovae"
The Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea has been used in a campaign to detect and observe supernovae in extremely distant galaxies in an attempt to better understand the early universe. Although supernovae come in a few different categories, each one in a certain category behaves in a very similar manner, so once you determine the type, it's well-known characteristics can be used determine things such as the distance to its host galaxy. These are the types of observations that were used to determine that not only is the universe is expanding, but the expansion is actually accelerating.
As a side note and to put this in context, a galaxy like ours is expected to have one supernova every hundred years or so, and in fact, we're well overdue for one. It's been over 400 years since we last saw a supernova in the Milky Way.
https://www.naoj.org/Pressrelease/2019/05/29/index.html
"As a result, the team identified 5 super luminous supernovae, and about 400 Type Ia supernovae. Fifty-eight of these Type Ia supernovae were located more than 8 billion light years away from Earth. In comparison, it took researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope about 10 years to discover a total of 50 supernovae located more than 8 billion light years away from Earth."
The Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea has been used in a campaign to detect and observe supernovae in extremely distant galaxies in an attempt to better understand the early universe. Although supernovae come in a few different categories, each one in a certain category behaves in a very similar manner, so once you determine the type, it's well-known characteristics can be used determine things such as the distance to its host galaxy. These are the types of observations that were used to determine that not only is the universe is expanding, but the expansion is actually accelerating.
As a side note and to put this in context, a galaxy like ours is expected to have one supernova every hundred years or so, and in fact, we're well overdue for one. It's been over 400 years since we last saw a supernova in the Milky Way.
https://www.naoj.org/Pressrelease/2019/05/29/index.html
"As a result, the team identified 5 super luminous supernovae, and about 400 Type Ia supernovae. Fifty-eight of these Type Ia supernovae were located more than 8 billion light years away from Earth. In comparison, it took researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope about 10 years to discover a total of 50 supernovae located more than 8 billion light years away from Earth."