Earendel revealed: James Webb Space Telescope lifts veil on the most distant star known in the unive

[Judi Lynn]

By Mike Wall published 1 day ago
Earendel is about twice as hot as the sun, and it probably has a stellar companion.

Astronomers have begun measuring of the most distant star ever detected, thanks to the powerful eyes of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

That star, known as Earendel, was discovered last year by the Hubble Space Telescope. It has taken 12.9 billion years for Earendel's light to reach Earth, meaning the star was shining less than a billion years after the Big Bang spurred our universe into existence. However, Earendel doesn't lie a mere 12.9 billion light-years away from us.

Because the universe has been expanding at an accelerating rate since the Big Bang, the star now lives a whopping 28 billion light-years from Earth.



Imagery by the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument reveals that Earendel, the most distant known star in the universe, is a massive B-type star more than twice as hot as our sun, and about a million times more luminous. (Image credit: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, D. Coe (STScI/AURA for ESA; Johns Hopkins University), B. Welch (NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center; University of Maryland, College Park). Image processing: Z. Levay.)

Hubble was able to spot Earendel thanks to a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, in which the gravity of a massive foreground object sort of acts like a lens as it warps the very fabric of space and time, bending and brightening light from a more distant body as that light passes by.

More:
https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-earendel-star

[JoeOtterbein]

1. K n R ! Thanks for posting!...

..another cool article!

[NoMoreRepugs]

2. Mind boggling.

[dlk]

3. How cool is that?

Stunning!

[First Speaker]

4. Looking at pics like this...

...seeing whole galaxies strewn around in one view, imagining just how *vast* the distances are...28 billion light years? The mind literally boggles. Remembering that there are at *least* twenty *trillion* galaxies... It just brings to mind the old saying that the Universe is not only stranger than we know; it's stranger than we *can* know...

[SleeplessinSoCal]

5. This freaks me out!

It's impossible to wrap my head around this.

[Pas-de-Calais]

6. Are these distances even possible in Star Trek?

[MuseRider]

7. So fascinating

but impossible for my brain to make any real sense of it. I will just be happy being flabbergasted by the pictures and articles. I may not understand myself but know the value this information will have many years from now if we manage to save this planet.

[calimary]

8. How trippy is this!

I can barely even wrap my mind around 12.9 billion light years in distance.

[Hekate]

9. Lovely Elvish name!

[Solly Mack]

10. K&R

[mitch96]

11. "12.9 billion years for Earendel's light to reach Earth," This is just so amazing to me.

Last edited Fri Aug 11, 2023, 03:05 PM - Edit history (1)

I was looking up at Arteries in the western sky last nite. It's "only" about 6 million light years from earth. THAT blew me away.
The light traveled that far for so long to grace the retina in my little head and be recognized.
The other thing that blows me away about what these telescopes see in the spectrum of the materials in these ancient stars. What they are made of is the same stuff we are made of.
We are basically made of stardust
This matter, this stardust flows from place to place and momentarily comes together
to be you and me...
Just amazing...
m