Astronomers now have a new measuring stick to peek into the universe in its early stages. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the earliest known supernova on camera, a mind-blowing stellar explosion that lit up the universe some 730 million years ago. At the time, galaxies were still finding their feet, and stars were burning with an unrestrained ferocity. This discovery pushes the timing for such massive events back more than a billion years, providing a better understanding of how the early cosmos formed its first heavy elements.
