27 Dec , 09:35
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The "James Webb" Space Telescope made a breakthrough: for the first time, a supernova explosion was directly captured at a record distance, in an era when the Universe was only about 730 million years old. Scientists observed a cosmic cataclysm from the time of the birth of the first stars and galaxies.
The research results were published in the prestigious scientific journal Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A).
The discovered supernova is associated with gamma-ray burst GRB 250314A, registered on March 14, 2025, by the SVOM space observatory. The extraordinary remoteness of this cosmic event was confirmed by subsequent observations using the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory. The data from the NIRCam infrared camera of the "James Webb" telescope, obtained 110 days after the burst, became decisive in the research. These data allowed scientists to separate the glow of the explosion from the weak radiation of the parent galaxy.
"The main evidence for the connection between gamma-ray bursts and the death of massive stars was the detection of a supernova at the same point in the sky," noted co-author of the work, astrophysicist Antonio Martin-Carrillo. "Almost all supernovae that we studied earlier were relatively close. When we realized how ancient this event was, it became clear that we had a unique opportunity to look at the conditions of the early Universe and understand what kinds of stars were being born and dying then."
According to the scientist, researchers used models of supernovae associated with gamma-ray bursts in the local Universe to predict the expected radiation.
"To our surprise, the model worked very well: the observed supernova turned out to be surprisingly similar in its properties to the explosions of massive stars that we see near us today. We also managed for the first time to discern the galaxy in which this dying star was located," added Martin-Carrillo.
Careful analysis showed that the distant supernova is comparable in brightness and spectral characteristics to the prototype of such events - SN 1998bw, observed in the nearby Universe. This fact indicates that the massive star that gave rise to GRB 250314A differed little from its modern counterparts, despite the fundamentally different conditions of the early cosmic environment, including extremely low metallicity. The data obtained also rule out the scenario of a more exotic and bright explosion.
The discovery calls into question the established idea that the first stars should have died in fundamentally different ways than modern ones, and provides an important reference point for theories of stellar evolution in the early Universe. In the next year or two, the team plans to conduct repeated observations. By this time, the light of the supernova should significantly weaken, which will allow detailed study of the properties of its host galaxy and final confirmation of the contribution of the explosion itself to the observed radiation.
