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Hubble Snaps Record-Breaking Photo of the Farthest Star Ever Detected

Although NASA's Hubble telescope has been floating in space for more than three decades, it continues to impress scientists. The telescope has recently snapped a photo of the most distant star ever seen – a star whose light took 12.9 billion years to reach our planet.
Hubble Space Telescope captures the most distant star ever seen 7 photos
Photo: NASA, ESA, B. Welch (JHU), D. Coe (STScI), A. Pagan (STScI)
Hubble space telescope captures the most distant star ever seenHubble space telescope captures the most distant star ever seenHubble space telescope captures the most distant star ever seenThe Hubble Space TelescopeThe Hubble Space TelescopeThe Hubble Space Telescope
The light from the previous record holder, a start nicknamed Icarus (also spotted by Hubble), took 9 billion years to reach Earth. So the leap between the two achievements is incredible. The recently-discovered star was named Earendel ("morning star" in Old English) and is believed to be millions of times brighter than our Sun and at least 50 times more massive.

Astronomer Brian Welch, the lead author of the paper describing the discovery, says that even galaxies that are located at such distances appear as tiny smudges since the light from millions of stars that they host seems to blend together.

But thanks to a galaxy cluster that lies between the Earth and the newly-spotted star, Hubble was able to find Earendel from 12.9 billion light-years away. That's because the mass of this huge galaxy cluster warped the fabric of space, creating a natural magnifying glass that amplified the light from distant celestial objects.

Scientists say that this rare alignment magnified Earendel's brightness a thousandfold or more, allowing the telescope to observe it. To us, the star looks as it did when the universe was around 900 million years old, or about seven percent of its current age.

The galaxy cluster will continue to amplify the star's light for many years from now, and this will allow the recently-launched James Webb Space Telescope to study it in detail. Since Webb is more powerful than Hubble, scientists expect to be able to "measure its brightness and temperature" and determine what type of star it is.

Because Earendel formed before the universe started to fill with the heavy elements produced by numerous generations of stars, determining its composition is something that scientists are looking forward to. If data shows that Earendel is made from primordial hydrogen and helium, it will prove the existence of hypothetical Population III stars, which are believed to be the first stars formed from the primordial material that resulted from the Big Bang.

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About the author: Florina Spînu
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Florina taught herself how to drive in a Daewoo Tico (a rebadged Suzuki Alto kei car) but her first "real car" was a VW Golf. When she’s not writing about cars, drones or aircraft, Florina likes to read anything related to space exploration and take pictures in the middle of nature.
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