The star, named Earendel, is about 12.9 billion light years from Earth.
“It was unlikely that Hubble would capture something so distant,” says Spanish astrophysicist José María Diego.
As I wandered through space, hubble telescope captured the image of a galaxy far, far away. “At first, the image looked like any other taken by a space telescope. A spectacular picture with many stars and many galaxies. But as soon as the first analyzes began, a little dot was discovered that no one was able to decipher“, explains the Spanish astrophysicist José María Diego, from the Physics Institute of Cantabria (CSIC-UC). “As soon as I saw the image I knew what it was. He was a star, Earendel, the farthest star discovered so far and that receives its name as a tribute to Tolkien. Something that no one expected to find with Hubble,” the scientist enthuses at the debut of this stellar finding.
For days, the scientific community, and astro-amateurs from all over the world, they speculated on the news that, as NASA and ESA had announced, the March 30th and It would go straight into the history books.. And when the day came, the finding of Earendel It is presented as one of these news that marks a before and after in our understanding of the universe. But before continuing with the scientific part of the news, here is a brief note to say this star has been named after Tolkien’s poem ‘The journey of Eärendel, the evening star’, written in 1914, and which in turn is inspired by the Anglo-Saxon term meaning “morning Star” O “rising light”.
A new record:@NASAHubble observed the farthest single star ever seen!
“Earendel” emitted its light during the first billion years of our universe.
Read more about this exciting news and what it means for astronomy: https://t.co/mquoQ4HxpJ ⭐️ pic.twitter.com/bLUEOxA8CB— NASA in Spanish (@NASA_es) March 30, 2022
“It’s the first time that we observe a star so far away, located 12.9 billion light years and that existed during the first billion years of the Universeshortly after the Big Bang”, explains Diego. “We have captured the light of this star, and although we know that right now it no longer existssince it has disappeared after a great explosion, its discovery could reveal an infinity of mysteries about our universe”, comments the scientist as one of the experts who this Wednesday presents the study of this star in the scientific magazine ‘Nature’.
“This is the first time we have observed such a distant star”
Jose Maria Diego, astrophysicist
“Studying Earendel will be a window into an anverse era we’re not familiar with, but that led to everything we know. It is as if we have been reading an interesting book, but we start in the second chapter and now we have the opportunity to see how it all began, “he adds. Brian Welch, a scientist at Johns Hopkins University and the first author of this spectacular find. This star, in fact, could indicate what the universe was like when it was only 7% of its current age.
stellar find
Earendel’s discovery breaks several records. Until now, the farthest star known to Earthlings was Icarus, discovered in 2018 by Hubble and located 9,000 million light years from Earth. Earendel pulverizes this brand and introduces himself as the new farthest star discovered by earthlings. To get there, in fact, it would be necessary to (break the laws of physics and) travel through space for 12.9 billion years at the speed of light. This star also appears as one of the brightest stars and more massive discovered to date (with a mass equivalent to 50 of our suns). And as one of the few celestial bodies discovered thanks to gravitational lensing ‘magnifying glass’.
“Studying Earendel will be a window into an era of the universe that we are unfamiliar with, but that led to everything we do know.”
Hubble observed the farthest individual star ever detected, nicknamed Earendel and designated by the arrow: https://t.co/Zoz7aZvyCs pic.twitter.com/1F369N5n0w
— Hubble (@NASAHubble) March 31, 2022
Earendel’s light has traveled through space for hundreds of millions of years and has been captured by a astrophysical principle predicted by Albert Einstein in his general theory of relativity; gravitational lenses. This effect occurs when light from one object bends around another massive body. In Earendel’s case, its distant glow has been bent, redshifted, and amplified by the galaxy directly in front of it, known as the ‘Sunburst Arc’. And that was the object that Hubble pointed to during his space observations and that, by pure chance, has revealed the existence of this record star.
Earendel’s finding, experts explain, is even more surprising because no one expected that the Hubble Space Telescope would be able to capture such distant objects. “It was unlikely that Hubble would ever capture a galaxy that far away. When we discovered this star, it was actually quite a surprise because it was something we didn’t even have in our sights“, comments Diego. In fact, the scientific community expected that this type of discovery would be produced through the lens of the brand new James Webb Space Telescope, the new generation instrument launched just a few months ago and that promises to revolutionize our view of the universe .
“It was unlikely that Hubble would ever capture a galaxy so far away”
Universal unknowns
So after Hubble’s unexpected discovery, scientists hope that Webb will take over to continue studying this distant star. East new space telescope will point to Earendel to study, among others, its mass, its composition and its age. “We want to find out what kind of star it is. Was Earendel one of the first stars in the universe, the kind that was just hydrogen and helium? Or was it a second-generation star, the kind that also had carbon, oxygen and iron? The study of this object can reveal many of the unknowns we have about the origins of the universeDiego explains.
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Beyond studying this star itself, Earendel could also help unravel one of the great mysteries of modern astrophysics; dark matter. “If it is true that there are primordial black holes in every galaxy, studying the light of such a distant star could help us learn (or discard) many of the things we believe about dark matter”, says Diego. This task will also This task will also become part of Webb’s duties, who will soon officially begin his campaign of scientific observations.
“The bar is set very high for the James Webb Telescope. Now that we have been able to see the light of a star so far away, the following is capture the light of the first stars. To see what the universe was like when he was still an infant”, comments Diego enthusiastically.