Supernova 1997ap
Depicts: SN 1997ap
Copyright: S. Perlmutter (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and NASA
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False-color images from observations by the Supernova Cosmology Project of one of the
two most distant spectroscopically confirmed
supernova. From the left: the first two images, from the Cerro Tololo Interamerican
Observatory 4-meter telescope, show a small
region of sky just before and just after the the appearance of a type-Ia supernova
that exploded when the universe was about half its
present age. The third image shows the same supernova as observed with the Hubble Space
Telescope. This much sharper picture
allows a much better measurement of the apparent brightness and hence the distance of
this supernova. Because their intrinsic
brightness is predictable, such supernovae help to determine the deceleration, and so
the eventual fate, of the universe.
Last Update: 1 September 2019
