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 3. Science & Astronomy


JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE GLIMPSES EARENDEL, THE MOST DISTANT STAR KNOWN IN THE
UNIVERSE

By Tereza Pultarova published 3 days ago

The star's discovery by the Hubble Space Telescope was only announced earlier
this year.

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Earendel, the most distant known star in the universe in a deep field captured
by the James Webb Space Telescope. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI)


The James Webb Space Telescope has caught a glimpse of the most distant star
known in the universe, which had been announced by scientists using Webb's
predecessor the Hubble Space Telescope only a few months ago. 



The star, named Earendel, after a character in J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the
Rings" prequel "The Silmarillion," was discovered thanks to gravitational
lensing in a Hubble Space Telescope deep field image. The star, whose light took
12.9 billion years to reach Earth, is so faint that it might be rather
challenging to find it in the new James Webb Space Telescope image, which was
released on Twitter on Tuesday (Aug. 2) by a group of astronomers using the
account Cosmic Spring JWST (opens in new tab). 



The original Hubble image provides some guidance as to where to look through the
zoomed-in cut-out. Essentially, Earendel, is the tiny whitish dot below a
cluster of distant galaxies. By comparing the Hubble image with that captured by
Webb, you can find the elusive Earendel.




Gallery: James Webb Space Telescope's 1st photos



"We're excited to share the first JWST image of Earendel, the most distant star
known in our universe, lensed and magnified by a massive galaxy cluster," the
Cosmic Spring astronomers wrote in the tweet, noting that the observations
occurred on Saturday (July 30).



The tweet refers to gravitational lensing, which is nature's help for
astronomers. The effect takes advantage of the fact that extremely massive
bodies, such as galaxy clusters or supermassive black holes, bend light from
objects behind them. When light passes by such a body, it behaves as if it were
passing through the lens of a telescope, becoming magnified, albeit also
distorted. Using gravitational lensing therefore extends the reach of
telescopes, such as Hubble and Webb, enabling them to see farther and in greater
detail.



Earendel, the most distant star known to astronomers, was discovered by the
Hubble Space Telescope in 2022. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/Space Telescope Science
Institute)

Webb was designed to see the first galaxies that sprung up in the young universe
in the first hundreds of millions of years following the dark ages after the Big
Bang. Astronomers, however, thought that it would not be possible to see
individual stars of this first generation of suns that formed at that time. But
gravitational lensing might actually enable them to see inside those early
stellar groupings in detail.

Related stories:

— Dazzling James Webb Space Telescope image prompts science scramble
— Jupiter glows in new James Webb Space Telescope raw image
— James Webb Space Telescope beats its own record with potential most distant
galaxies 

"JWST was designed to study the first stars. Until recently, we assumed that
meant populations of stars within the first galaxies," astronomers from the
Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland, which operates Webb and Hubble,
wrote in a recent paper (opens in new tab) discussing the technique. "But in the
past three years, three individual strongly lensed stars have been discovered.
This offers a new hope of directly observing individual stars at cosmological
distances with JWST."

Earendel, also known under its proper name WHL0137-LS, is located in the
constellation of Cetus, but don't expect to see it if you look up at the night
sky — even gravitational lensing isn't that powerful.

Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter at @TerezaPultarova. Follow us on Twitter
@Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky
and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at:
community@space.com.

Tereza Pultarova
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Senior Writer

Tereza is a London-based science and technology journalist, aspiring fiction
writer and amateur gymnast. Originally from Prague, the Czech Republic, she
spent the first seven years of her career working as a reporter, script-writer
and presenter for various TV programmes of the Czech Public Service Television.
She later took a career break to pursue further education and added a Master's
in Science from the International Space University, France, to her Bachelor's in
Journalism and Master's in Cultural Anthropology from Prague's Charles
University. She worked as a reporter at the Engineering and Technology magazine,
freelanced for a range of publications including Live Science, Space.com,
Professional Engineering, Via Satellite and Space News and served as a maternity
cover science editor at the European Space Agency.

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