Scientists have confirmed the discovery of the most distant supernova among those discovered. This is a giant cosmic explosion that occurred 10.5 billion years ago. An explosive star was found at Dark Energy Survey (DES) and named DES16C2nm. As part of the program, several hundred million galaxies were planned to be displayed in order to obtain more dark energy data.
The light from the event reached our planet 10.5 billion years, despite the fact that the space is only 13.8 billion years old. A supernova is an explosion of a massive star at the end of its life cycle. DES16C2nm is a type of superluminal supernova (SLSN). This is the brightest and rarest type of supernovae, the first representative of which was found only 10 years ago. The light was caused by a falling material on a rapidly rotating neutron star.
Before the explosion
DES16C2nm is distinguished not only by a high level of brightness, but also by a range of locations, so this is not a typical object for astronomers. The UV light from SLSN reports data on the amount of metal formed during the explosion, as well as temperature heating. Now researchers know what criteria to search for such celestial events and actively browse the sky as part of studying dark energy.
After the explosion
DES16C2nm found in August 2016, and the far extreme brightness was confirmed in October. For this they used the Very Large Telescope, the Magellan Telescope and the Keck Observatory. The study involved more than 400 scientists.
For 5 years, 525 nights were used to observe 300 million galaxies located in billions of light years from our planet. The review is an image of 5,000 square degrees of the southern sky, captured in 5 optical filters.
