NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) image of the galaxy cluster PLCK G165.7+67.0, also known as G165. A foreground cluster, located 3.6 billion light-years away from Earth, is magnifying and bending the light of the distant universe beyond. In this image, astronomers discovered the light of an exploding star — more specifically, a Type Ia supernova — imaged three times, seen as points of light within the prominent red arc at the right-center of the image.

To achieve three images, the light traveled along three different paths. Since each path had a different length, and light traveled at the same speed, the supernova was imaged in this Webb observation at three different times during its explosion. The multiply-imaged supernova offers astronomers a unique way to calculate a new value for the Hubble constant — the rate at which the universe is accelerating.

The field of G165 is known for a high rate of star formation of more than 300 solar masses per year, an attribute that correlates with higher supernova rates.