The supernova, named AT 2026abck, dates to around 1.15 billion years after the Big Bang, when the universe was less than one-tenth of its current age and bursting with massive stars flickering into life. The massive exploding star violently released its light over 12.5 billion years ago, according to the researchers — so long ago that the distance between us has effectively ballooned sixfold due to the expansion of the universe.
"At its peak, the supernova is about 8 billion times the brightness of the sun … almost as bright as the whole Milky Way Galaxy," study co-author Xiaohui Fan, an observational cosmologist and professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, told Live Science via email. "Over the course of the explosion, it radiates the energy that the sun will radiate over about 2 billion years."
The supernova's host galaxy, designated ID101411, holds about 6.3 billion solar masses and is "forming new stars more than ten times faster than our Milky Way," first author Mingyang Zhuang, an observational astrophysicist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told Live Science via email.
An illustration of a supernova erupting when the universe was just 730 million years old. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, L. Hustak (STScI))
The study authors estimate that they observed the supernova as it would have looked just four to 10 days after it exploded. Although this is relatively common, spotting one at such an incredible distance "is extremely rare," Zhuang emphasized. "You have to observe the exact same tiny patch of sky repeatedly with [JWST], and the explosion has to happen at the right moment. We were lucky."
"Most supernovas this far away were found with help from a massive foreground galaxy cluster acting as a natural magnifying glass," Zhuang explained. "It's the most distant one we've actually seen appear."
An explosion in slow motion
Intriguingly, the star had not yet exploded in JWST's previous viewing, on May 28, 2026, meaning that 71 days passed on our Earthly clocks, even though only about 12 days passed in the supernova's own time frame.
"Because the universe has expanded since this light was emitted, everything about this explosion appears to us in slow motion, about six times slower than it actually happened," Zhuang said. "Changes that took one week at the supernova take about six weeks to unfold from our point of view."
Related storiesMysteries still remain about the nature of this ancient explosion that shone so brilliantly we can observe it across nearly the entire universe.
"Our interpretation is still preliminary," Zhuang concluded. "Follow-up observations will tell us more about exactly what kind of explosion this was."
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