NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has detected for the first time a supernova, the big explosion of a dying star, 3 billion light-years away from Earth.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected for the first time a supernova , the explosion of a dying star 3 billion light-years from Earth. When the Hubble Telescope and observed the same galaxy in 2011, this explosion did not exist.

The supernova discovered by Weber is in the red circle in the picture above, and is a bright dot.

According to reports, this supernova is located in the SDSS.J141930.11+5251593 galaxy. Images taken by JWST show that the light of an object becomes darker and darker over five days. This clue triggered speculation about the supernova.

It is reported that when a star runs out of fuel and the pressure drops, the star will expand to at least five times the mass of our sun , which is equivalent to the size of 333,000 Earths, and then a big explosion will occur, releasing tons of debris and particles. . This phenomenon is called a "supernova".

Mike Engesser of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STSCI) said that what is exciting is that JWST is not designed to find and detect new transients. The potential supernova was captured by the NIRCam instrument, which is designed to detect the light of the earliest stars and galaxies by using a broad spectrum of infrared light.

NIRCam is equipped with coronagraphs . These instruments allow astronomers to take pictures of very faintly lit objects surrounding a central bright object, such as star systems , or in this case of star explosions.

JWST is surveying this distant galaxy, so capturing the supernova was "pure luck".

The dying star appears as a small bright spot in the image. When Hubble observed the same galaxy in 2011, this explosion did not exist. The

research team discovered the supernova using software analysis.

Engzel and his team used software designed to spot differences in photos, which led to the discovery of this bright blob.

Weber discovered the oldest galaxy in the universe visible to human eyes.

JWST has proven that the $10 billion NASA spent on it was worth it. Not only did it provide the first official deep-sky image on July 12, but a week later, scientists announced it had discovered a 13.5-billion-year-old galaxy, now the oldest in the universe visible to human eyes. .

Text/Nandu reporter Chen Lin