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EMBARGOED UNTIL: 9:00 am (EDT) April 10, 2003

CONTACT: Ray Villard
           Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
           (Phone: 410/338-4514; E-mail: villard{at}stsci.edu)

           Michael Purdy
           Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
           (Phone: 410/516-7160; E-mail: mcp{at}jhu.edu)

           Holland Ford
           Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
           (Phone: 410/516-8653; E-mail: ford{at}pha.jhu.edu)

PRESS RELEASE NO.: STScI-PR03-12

FAR-FLUNG SUPERNOVAE SHED LIGHT ON DARK UNIVERSE

New NASA Hubble Space Telescope observations of a pair of very
distant exploding stars, called Type Ia supernovae, provide new clues
about the accelerating universe and its mysterious "dark energy."
Astronomers used the telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys to help
pinpoint the supernovae, which are approximately 5 billion and 8
billion light-years from Earth. The farther one exploded so long ago
the universe may still have been decelerating under its own gravity.

-end-

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA), for
NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt,
MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international
cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

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