Rare Quadruply Lensed Supernova Discovered with Cosmic Magnifying Glass.

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) at Palomar Observatory has discovered a rare, quadruply-lensed supernova, known as SN Zwicky, which was magnified by a distant galaxy's gravitational lens. The lens split the supernova into four images, revealing clues about the distribution of masses of stars in the core of the lensing galaxy. The lensed supernova will also provide a new and important data point in efforts to chart the expansion of the universe through measurements of its brightness and luminosity. The next few years will see the beginning of work by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, which is tasked with scanning the entire sky in high-resolution multiple times each night, searching for anything that goes bump in the dark, including lensed supernovas and their faint lensing galaxies.