... Hubble breaks new ground with distant supernova discovery . Such remote supernovae will help astronomers determine whether the exploding stars remain dependable cosmic yardsticks across vast distances of space in an epoch when the cosmos was only one-third its current age of 13.7 billion years. ... The supernova was discovered as part of a three-year Hubble program to survey faraway type Ia supernovae, opening a new distance realm for searching for this special class of stellar explosion. ...