One potential solution could lie in directly measuring larger numbers of objects whose intrinsic properties are known — so-called “standard candles” like type Ia supernovae — at ever-greater distances. A huge challenge to this has been that supernovae are rare, infrequent, and very difficult to observe at extreme distances. Even with its unprecedentedly powerful eyes, JWST, with its narrow field-of-view, will only observed these events rarely.
However, a new proof-of-concept has just arrived. In a new paper just submitted on September 13, 2023, Dr. Brenda Frye and collaborators spotted a type Ia supernova that appeared in triple: magnified and distorted by the gravity of a foreground galaxy cluster. It just might be the key to measuring, to greater precision and accuracy than ever before, exactly how the Universe truly is expanding.