Light from the star, named Earendel, has taken about 12.9 billion years to reach Earth – a huge leap from the previous most distant star, which dates back nine billion years. The observations were possible thanks to a rare cosmic alignment, which means that Ardel may be the only single star of this era that we will ever see. “We hardly believed it at first, it was much farther away than the previous farthest star,” said Brian Welch, a doctor of astronomy at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the paper. “The study of Arendel will be a window into an era of the universe that we are not familiar with, but that led to everything we know.” Professor Colin Norman, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University who did not participate in the findings, said: “This is a remarkable groundbreaking discovery that opens up a whole new area of discovery and allows large stars to be immediately observed when the universe was new. and star formation has only recently begun. “ Diagram showing Earendel. Photo: Space Telescope Scientific Institute / NASA, ESA, B. Welch (JHU) and D. Scientists estimate that Earendel, whose name means “morning star” in Old English, is at least 50 times the mass of the Sun and millions of times brighter, ranking it among the most massive stars known. But even such a bright star could not normally be detected. At such vast distances, even an entire galaxy is just a smudge of light. Only thanks to the physical magnification of a huge cluster of galaxies, WHL0137-08, located between us and Ardel, astronomers were able to make the discovery. The gravitational pull of the swarm is so intense that light bends around it, creating a powerful cosmic magnifying glass that amplifies light from distant objects behind it. Scientists estimate that Arendel’s luminosity is magnified by thousands – a condition that may not be repeated with other ancient stars in our lifetime. “This may be the first star we will ever see since the Big Bang,” said Dr. Guillaume Mahler, an astronomer at Durham University and co-author. The distance of the star was calculated from its color. Light “shifts red” away from its original wavelength as it travels through the expanding universe and so, although the Earendel would be blue if viewed up close, 12.9 billion years ago, it appears deep red in its images. Hubble. The observations have been hailed as extremely important and have been prioritized for the first round of observations using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which is due to launch in June. This will allow scientists to definitively confirm that they are looking at a single, very distant star. An alternative, which is considered very unlikely, is to be a dim, near brown dwarf. Scheduled observations will also allow astronomers to measure the brightness and temperature of the star and provide information on the composition of the first generation of stars. These stars – the ancestors of what we see in the sky today – formed before the universe was filled with heavy elements produced by successive generations of giant stars. There is theoretical prediction, but not direct evidence, of an early generation of stars consisting only of primordial hydrogen and helium. “[These stars] “They produce the first supernovae that enrich galaxies with minerals and elements like carbon and oxygen that are essential for life.” “These stars are also responsible for injecting energy into the turbulent medium from which stars and galaxies form.” The findings are published in the journal Nature.
