Named Earendel, the most distant known star in the universe was recently captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been doing very well since it began sending images last month. After creating history by taking the deepest image of the universe and snapping a picture of the most distant galaxy in the universe, he has now accomplished another feat. This time, JWST captured the image of the most distant known star in the universe. This star was first discovered earlier this year when NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope managed to capture it in a photo. But that image was barely visible. By comparison, the JWST image shows the faint red glow of the star and the star trail on which it lies. Read on to learn more about the star.
The most distant star in the universe is named Earendel after the half-elven characters from the Lord of the Rings series by J. RR Tolkien. Officially, the star is known by the more technical name WHL0137-LS. This image was shared on Tuesday, August 2, by the Cosmic Spring JWST Twitter account, which is run by astronomers who post images from the JWST. In the tweet, Earendel can be seen as a small red dot in the lower right of the image.
Posting the image, the account wrote: “We are excited to share the first JWST image of Earendel, the most distant star known in our universe, mirrored and magnified by a massive galaxy cluster. It was observed on Saturday by JWST’s 2282 program.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope images the most distant star in the universe
Astronomers used a cool trick known as gravitational lensing to spot the star. In essence, massive celestial bodies such as galaxies and black holes bend the light emitted by objects behind them due to their gravitational fields. When this light from more distant stars passes through these massive celestial objects, it acts like it passes through the lens of a telescope and is magnified. In this way, even the smallest objects that may have been missed by the telescope can be captured. Gravitational lensing increases the capabilities of space telescopes.
This is why Earendel, located 28 billion light years away, was captured by both Hubble and JWST. Although not much is known about this elusive star, we do know that it is located in the constellation Cetus, and the light it emits is thought to have come approximately 900 million years after the Big Bang. Scientists theorize that Earendel is probably between 50 and 100 solar masses.
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