The universe is baffling. We all know it's infinite boundaries will presumably never be fully understood, yet we still strive to piece together its ominous mystery. In a recent, intriguing development in our never-ending search of the cosmos, astronomers spotted the most distant star explosion of its kind.
Through the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists were able to monitor Supernova UDS10Wil, dubbed SN Wilson, which exploded more than 10 billion years ago. The 10 billions years it took the light from the blast to reach our planet pinpoints the explosion's mind-boggling distance from Earth, making it the most distant supernova scientists have ever seen.
"This new distance record holder opens a window into the early universe, offering important new insights into how these stars explode," said David Jones, research leader at Johns Hopkins University. "We can test theories about how reliable these detonations are for understanding the evolution of the universe and its expansion."
SN Wilson is known as a Type la star explosions that provides scientists with insight into how the universe has expanded over time. Although it 's only four percent farther than the previous most distant supernova, it still dates back 350 million years further. By dating these explosions, scientists can determine how and when planets, galaxies and other cosmic entities began to manifest within the universe.
"If supernovae were popcorn, the question is how long before they start popping?" said Adam Reiss, and astronomer at the Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore Md. "You may have different theories about what is going on in the kernel. If you see when the first kernels popped and how often they popped, it tells you something important about the process of popping corn."
As the three-year initiative to discover distant star explosions by the Hubble program continues, scientists hope to gain a better grasp on how supernovae have changed in since the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. The Big Bang theory claims that a missive star explosion created the universe, so naturally, their behavior must have altered since the initial bang.
Although clues like these serve as baby steps, everyday scientists are closer to uncovering out universe's biggest mysteries. With more discoveries like that of SN Wilson and the 2018 introduction of the new James Webb Space Telescope, human beings will have a better understanding of how we fit into the complexity of the vast unknown.
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