Hubble time! 🌌 This picture of a supernova-hosting galaxy located about 600 million light-years away in the constellation Gemini was taken roughly two months after a supernova named SN 2022aajn was discovered in the galaxy. The supernova is visible as a blue dot at the centre of the image, brightening the hazy body of the galaxy. Other than the announcement of its discovery in November 2022, SN 2022aajn has never been the subject of published research. Why, then, would Hubble observe this supernova? SN 2022aajn is what’s known as a Type Ia supernova, which results from the explosion of the core of a dead star. Supernovae of this type help astronomers measure the distance to faraway galaxies. This is possible because Type Ia supernovae are thought to be of the same intrinsic luminosity — no matter how bright they seem from Earth, they put out the same amount of light as other Type Ia supernovae. Thus, by comparing the observed brightness to the expected brightness, researchers can ca...