Diana Battefeld, Death of a Star [Oil on Canvas]

The painting above shows Supernova 1994D, located on the lower left corner of a disk galaxy NGC 4526. It is in fact a type IA supernova which are all characterized by essentially the same intrinsic brightness. As evident in the painting, the explosion of a single star rivals the brightness of an entire galaxy for a brief amount of time. These standard candles can be used to measure the distance to far away galaxies that could not be determined by other means, such as the Cepheid Variables used by Hubble. The brightness-distance relation allows scientists to determine if the expansion rate of the universe is constant or dynamical. Current observations show that the expansion is in fact accelerating due to dark energy. Extrapolating to the past, the observation of the expansion rate is evidence that at an earlier time the universe was smaller than it is now. In fact, we can deduce the time at which the observable universe was compressed to a region smaller than a pin-head. This Big Bang happened about billion years ago.

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