Using the Hubble Space Telescope and a natural cosmic magnifying lens, astronomers have seen amazing multiple images of the same exploding ancient star.

The four stunning images taken by Hubble were apparently caused by light following different paths around a colossal galaxy cluster located between the exploded, distant star and the space telescope orbiting the Earth.

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The star system's gravity affects passing photons or particles of light and bends them, a pnenomenon foreseen by Albert Einstein some 100 years ago.

Astronomers use this unique phenomenon called gravitational lensing to boost Hubble's ability to take images of very distant objects and to take a look farther back in time.

In a rare coincidence, this supernova that exploded some nine billion years ago was also aligned with another galaxy cluster during a Hubble observation in 2011.

Scientists examined the images again in November to search for supernovae and discovered a quadruple rendering, a configuration known as an Einstein cross.

According to astronomer Jennifer Lotz from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, the supernova team was just looking at these images and then four more other images popped up, and they were incredibly lucky to witness this.

This object is named Supernova Refsdal after Norwegian astronomer Sjur Refsdal, who also first detected the multiple imaged supernova. Its appearance is 20 times brighter than its natural brightness due to the combination of two overlapping lenses, according to Jens Hjorth from the Dark Cosmology Center, Denmark.

The light from this supernova will fade eventually when the explosion reduces but the additional warping from the light of the galaxy cluster can cause another occurrence of the explosion.

According to Steve Rodney from the Johns Hopkins University, these four supernova images were captured by Hubble and appeared during a few weeks of each other.

The supernova may have already appeared in a single image somewhere in the cluster field 20 years ago. It's now expected to reappear one more time in the next year or in five years. This study will be published in the journal, Science.

TagsHubble Space Telescope, Supernova, einstein's cross, gravitational lensing, explode supernova astronomers reruns quadruple image star einstein cross, 9 Billion Year Old Supernova Explodes Four Times; Will Explode Again in 5 Years