A magnified supernova
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 11:02
in Astronomy & Space
Supernovae are among astronomers most important tools for exploring the history of the universe. Their frequency allows us to examine how active star formation was, how heavy elements have developed, and the distance to galaxies across vast distances. Yet even these titanic explosions are only so bright, and theres an effective limit on how far we can detect them with the current generation of telescopes. However, this limit can be extended with a little help from gravity.