An incredibly bright supernova is believed to get its light from a "lensing effect" from a neighboring galaxy.
The galaxy's gravity is believed to bend the supernova's light in the same way glass lens would, an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) news release reported. The galaxy is located in the Aquarius constellation.
The team first observed the supernova, dubbed PS1-10afx, in 2013. It's glow was so bright that some scientists thought it was a completely new type of object never seen before.
"The team that discovered it proposed that it was a new type of supernova, one that no theory predicted," senior author Robert Quimby of the University of Tokyo's Kavli Institute for Physics and Mathematics of the Universe said in the news release. "But PS1-10afx was different in just about every way. It evolved too fast, its host galaxy is too big, and it was way, way too red."
"We proposed that [its exceptional glow] could be explained as a gravitationally lensed SN1a, but we had no direct evidence for the lens," Quimby said. "Thus each explanation [to date] required a bit of magic-new physics or an unseen magnifier-and scientists don't generally buy into magic."
The researchers suggested that if the light was a result of the lensing effect, it would remain even after it faded. The team looked at the region when the supernova was at its peak brightness and then again when it had faded.
The team spotted two gas emission lines in their data, suggesting a lensing galaxy existed.
"Strong gravitational lensing is actually quite rare," Marcus Werner, co-author and Project Researcher at Kavli IPMU, said in the news release. "When it can be observed, it's very important in astronomy. Rather like a telescope, it lets us see objects we couldn't see otherwise."
This type of research could be used to measure "cosmic expansion."
"Each image will arrive at a different time, with the exact delay dependent on how the universe is expanding," Quimby said.
