Supernova appears multiple times
NASA, ESA, and S. Rodney (JHU) and the FrontierSN team; T. Treu (UCLA), P. Kelly (UC Berkeley) and the GLASS team; J. Lotz (STScI) and the Frontier Fields Team; M. Postman (STScI) and the CLASH team; and Z. Levay (STScI)
The powerful gravity of a massive cluster of galaxies in this Hubble Space Telescope image produces multiple images of the same distant supernova behind it. The cluster is acting like a giant “cosmic lens,” bending and magnifying light from the exploding star in an effect called gravitational lensing.
This image combines data from three months’ worth of observations taken in visible light by the Advanced Camera for Surveys and in near-infrared light by the Wide Field Camera 3.