Earndel, the farthest star – observed thanks to one of the natural “magnifying lenses” in the universe

The Hubble Telescope (Hubble) continues to break new records. This week’s study was published in nature Which reports the farthest star we’ve been able to photograph so far. The star is called WHL0137-LS but it has also been given a simpler name erendell Which means morning star.

We hardly believed it at first. It’s very far from the previous most distant star that turned red, says Brian Welch, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and lead author of the study. press release Published by NASA.

Gravitational lensing made observation possible

Earndel has not been around for a long time, but due to the star’s enormous distance, it can still be seen from Earth. It is believed that the star was about fifty times larger than the sun and several million times brighter.

The star broke the previous record for the farthest star, estimated at 12.9 billion light-years from us. Previous record holder, the star Icarusis a blue giant located 9 billion light-years from Earth.

The stars cannot usually be observed at these extreme distances because not enough light reaches us. But because of so-called gravitational lenses, light from distant objects can be bent, which, if we’re lucky, allows us to see them. Gravitational lenses were predicted by the general theory of relativity and act as normal telescopes.

In this case, the gravitational lensing is the galaxy cluster WHL0137-08 that lies between Earth and Earendel. The heap’s mass is so large that it bends light and acts as a magnifying glass. The star is located in the Sunrise Arc galaxy distorted by gravitational lensing and appears as a long, elongated arc.

Earndel’s position behind the cluster means that the star’s light is a thousand times magnified and distinctly visible compared to the rest of the galaxy.

The star is old but not the oldest

And Earndel’s being 12.9 light-years away means that the light we see today was emitted by the star when the universe was only about 900 million years young.

– Earndel has been around so long ago that it didn’t necessarily contain the same raw material as the stars around us today. Earendel’s study will provide insight into an age of the universe that we are not familiar with, but which led to everything we know now. It’s as if we just read an interesting book – but we’re starting with chapter two. Now we have a chance to see how it all began,” Brian Welch said in the press release.

However, Earendel is not the oldest star we have observed, although it is the most distant. The estimated age of the star HD 140283 is 13.7 billion years and is therefore believed to have formed shortly after the birth of the universe. The star was called Methuselah, after the 969-year-old Patriarch of the Bible. However, there are studies claiming that only Methuselah 12 billion years.

Earendel will be examined in more detail by Webb

In addition to being the most distant star, Earendel is also the most red-shifted star we have observed. The fact that the light emitted by the star turns red means that the wavelengths are directed towards the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This happens when the universe expands and light from distant objects, such as stars, is stretched.

Hubble is equipped to measure ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared radiation. On the other hand, the recently launched James Webb Telescope (Webb) is designed to look at the universe at a much higher resolution through the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

This means that Webb will be able to look at the universe more than Hubble can.

We expect to be able to confirm that Earendel is in fact a star with the help of Webb, by measuring its brightness and temperature. We also expect to see that the Sunrise Arc galaxy lacks the heavy elements that make up later generations of stars. This may indicate that Earndel is an unusual, massive, mineral-poor star, Dan Coe, co-author of the study, says in the press release.

Recently, the first sharp image was taken with Webb after calibrating its clearly segmented mirror.

The discovery of the star Earendel is a perfect structure for the first search results from Webb that are expected to come during the summer.

– Using Webb, we were able to see more distant stars than Earendel, which would be incredibly exciting. We will look back as often as we can. He would like to see Webb beat Earendel’s distance record, says Brian Welch in the press release.