"For millennia, supernovae were rare, once-per-century sights. The last naked-eye Milky Way supernova occurred way back in 1604. But with modern astronomy, they've appeared all across the Universe. Similarly, gravitational lenses abound, with mass bending and distorting space. The light from background objects often appears multiple times. When galactic brightness varies - from quasars or supernovae - those multiple images vary, too. Different images possess different path-lengths, causing delays in those features' appearances."
"Our first multiply lensed supernova exhibited significant delays across five separate images. These lensing path delays, wherever they occur, yield distance and redshift information. Multiply lensed, time-varying objects enable measurements of the cosmic expansion rate. In 2025, supernova SN 2025wny became humanity's first multiply imaged superluminous supernova. First identified with the Zwicky Transient Facility, follow-up ground based imaging revealed its nature. This observations demonstrate that existing ground-based facilities are sufficient for time-delay cosmography. Absorption lines, magnification information, and light-curve features are all easily revealed."
"With the advent of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, ~20 billion galaxies are continuously imaged. Many are lensed, yielding expectations of thousands of multiply lensed supernovae by 2035. This unprecedented sensitivity advances our cosmic understanding: one lensed system and one transient/supernova at a time. Mostly Mute Monday tells an astronomical story in images, visuals, and no more than 200 words."
Modern astronomy has revealed numerous supernovae across the Universe and abundant gravitational lenses that bend and distort space. Background sources often form multiple images due to lensing, and brightness variations in quasars or supernovae appear with different delays across those images because of differing path lengths. Time delays encode distance and redshift information, enabling measurements of cosmic expansion. The first multiply imaged, superluminous supernova (SN 2025wny) was identified in 2025 and showed significant delays across five images. Ground-based facilities, including Zwicky Transient Facility observations, can reveal absorption lines, magnification, and light-curve features. Upcoming Rubin Observatory imaging of ~20 billion galaxies promises thousands of lensed supernovae by 2035.
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