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Astronomers Successfully Predict Appearance of Supernova

Posted by timothy on from the lucky-guess dept.

schwit1 writes: For the first time ever astronomers have been able to predict and photograph the appearance of a supernova, its light focused by the gravitational lensing caused by a galaxy and the dark matter that surrounds it: "The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the image of the first-ever predicted supernova explosion. The reappearance of the Refsdal supernova was calculated from different models of the galaxy cluster whose immense gravity is warping the supernova's light." What makes this significant is that the prediction models were based on the theory of gravitational lensing and required the presence of dark matter to work. That they worked and were successful in predicting the appearance of this gravitationally bent light (bent by the dark matter it passed through) is a very strong confirmation of both concepts.

6 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Prediction of What? by tinkerton · · Score: 4, Informative

    They didn't predict that a supernova was about to happen. They'd already seen the supernova happening in its ghost image created by gravitational lensing. They predicted where another image of the supernova would turn up.

    1. Re:Prediction of What? by pjt33 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "the first-ever predicted supernova explosion" certainly sounds that way. The subsequent mention of reappearance mainly serves to confuse.

  2. Re-Watching a Supernova by Henning+Rogge · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It is a quite interesting thing being able to "re-watch" a Supernova from the beginning because the light has multiple paths towards Earth so we got a "warning" when it will happen.

    The problem with a lot of Supernova explosions is that we often don't know what happened in the early phase (until it became bright enough to be noticed in wide-field pictures). It is most likely "a little bit" too far away to learn what type of star has exploded, but it still a great opportunity.

  3. Dark Matter testable predictions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the image of the first-ever predicted supernova explosion. ... What makes this significant is that the prediction models were based on the theory of gravitational lensing and required the presence of dark matter to work.

    The important part here seems like confirmation of testable predictions made by Dark Matter theories. That's how science works: you have to make a falsifiable theory that makes testable predictions. Those predictions are then tested, to lend evidence toward or against the theories. This is key evidence in favor of Dark Matter.

    1. Re: Dark Matter testable predictions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      That it obeys the rules that dark matter would have to obey, and disobeys every theorem of mond that has ever been proposed.

      Duh.

      What else did you think a test and validation of a theory would incur? Cookies and presents for all?

  4. Re:Dark matter or MOND? by Khashishi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    MOND is largely discredited by the bullet cluster measurements.