On 14 March 2025, the SVOM satellite caught a gamma-ray burst named GRB 250314A. Its light shows it as it was when the universe was only about 730 million years old — making it the earliest supernova ever directly identified, far older than the previous record of 1.8 billion years.
About three and a half months later, NASA/ESA's James Webb Space Telescope found the fading supernova, and even its faint host galaxy — just a reddened smudge, a few pixels wide.
The surprise? It looks almost exactly like modern supernovae today, even though early stars were expected to explode differently. The universe was young. Its explosions were already familiar.
#GRB250314A #Supernova #JamesWebb #JWST #Space
