eso9511 — Science Release Beyond the Hubble Constant
International Astronomer Team Witnesses Very Ancient Stellar
Explosion 17 August 1995 A few months ago, a violent stellar
explosion -- a supernova -- was discovered in an extremely
distant galaxy by an international team of astronomers . This is
the very promising first result of a recently initiated,
dedicated search for such objects. Subsequent spectral
observations have shown this to be the most distant supernova
ever observed. Although it is very faint, it has been possible
to classify it as a supernova of Type Ia, a kind that is
particularly well suited for cosmological distance
determinations. A Very Efficient Supernova Search Programme The
present discovery was made during the team's first observations
with the 4-metre telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American
Observatory in Chile. This telescope is equipped with a wide-
field camera at its prime focus that enables the simultaneous
recording of the images of even very faint objects in a
15-arcminut