Astronomers have succeeded in finding some the most distant galaxies in the universe, but now they may have pinpointed the most distant star to date. Equal SyFy Dây Wire Noteresearchers using the Hubble Space Telescope have spot Earendel (“morning star” in Old English), a star now thought to be 12.9 billion light-years away – the light we see from it comes from when the universe was about 900 million years old. To date, the smallest objects seen at that distance are star clusters.
If confirmed, the star will easily break the previous record. The former most distant star was MACS J1149 + 2223 Lensed Star 1, which shone when the universe was about 4 billion years old. Scientists found that star using Hubble in 2018.
NASA / ESA / Brian Welch (JHU) / Dan Coe (STScI) / Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Miracles have been accomplished using gravitational lens, or rely on the gravity of galaxy clusters to distort light and magnify objects that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to detect. The star’s host galaxy has its light distorted into a long arc by the massive galaxy cluster WHL0137-08. When Earendel sits on the edge of a spatial “condenser,” or a ripple in the fabric of space, its brightness is magnified thousands of times and helps it stand out.
Earndel is also a big beast. Scientists estimate it has “at least” 50 times the mass of the Sun and is millions of times brighter. It is also expected to have relatively little metal, as it will form when it does not have access to the heavier elements that accompany successive generations of stars. If it were made of only hydrogen and helium, it would be the first evidence of very early “Population III” stars.
The object is yet to be confirmed as a star, but that could come relatively soon. Observers plan to use James Webb’s Space Telescope high infrared sensitivity to verify Earendel’s stellar state and study it in more detail. With that said, Webb can also help identify even more distant stars. In other words, his technology needed to confirm the existence of the star could make it into the caption.
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