Hubble completed its 200,000th orbit around Earth on September 19, after more than 36 years of observations. Its latest work includes watching for a supernova nicknamed Athena to appear again.
Athena was discovered with Webb in 2025. A foreground galaxy cluster, MACS J0417, bends the explosion’s light along different paths. Because those paths have different lengths, images of the same event can reach us at different times.
Researchers predicted another appearance between the September report and early March 2027. It remains an expected event, not a confirmed new sighting. Measuring the delay could help reveal how mass is distributed in the lensing cluster and contribute to studies of the universe’s expansion. An old telescope is helping tackle a very current cosmic puzzle.
Source: NASA report (2026-09-23).
