Uncovering a population of gravitational lens galaxies with magnified standard candle SN Zwicky

Understand

Detecting gravitationally lensed supernovae is among the biggest challenges in astronomy.

• It involves a combination of two very rare phenomena: catching the transient signal of a stellar explosion in a distant galaxy and observing it through a nearly perfectly aligned foreground galaxy that deflects light towards the observer.
• High-cadence optical observations with the Zwicky Transient Facility, with an unparalleled large field of view, led to the detection of a multiply-imaged Type Ia supernova (SN Ia), ``SN Zwicky", a.k.a.
• SN 2022qmx.