How far you look tonight?
The farthest and oldest star ever seen was discovered just 900 million years after the Big bang, and it was a dot of light.
The light from the star traveled over 12 billion light-years to reach Earth.
The Hubble Space Telescope was used to search for the farthest and earliest galaxies in the universe. The astronomer was able to see a single star system within one of the galaxies.
It was an unexpected surprise to find something so small, according to the author of a paper published in the journal Nature.
objects far away are too dim to be seen. Einstein's theory of general relativity describes how gravity bends space. A large cluster of stars can act as a lens to amplify light from far away.
There is a good chance that you can find objects behind a bunch of really massive galaxy clusters.
The brightness of the object behind the cluster can be up to a factor of 10.
The light is not evenly reflected. Bright spots can be created by ripples in space-time, like ripples on the surface of a swimming pool. The astronomer found that a point of light lined up with one of the ripples, and its shine was magnified by a thousandfold or more.
The star is just one component of the whole.
More distant objects are moving faster because of the expanding universe. That changes the wavelength of light. The previous record-holder for most distant single star has a red shift of 6.2. The universe was four billion years old when that star had a red shift.
The researchers dubbed the new star Earendel, Old English for "morning star." If it is a single star, the astronomer estimate that it is 50 times the mass of ours. A system of two or more stars is possible.
Earendel will be one of the targets for the first year of observations by the James Webb Space Telescope, which has a larger mirror than Hubble and gathers light at the longer wavelength.
The brightness will be measured across a spectrum of wavelength. The spectrum will help determine the star's temperature.
The composition of Earendel could be identified by more detailed observations by Mr. Welch. The lightest elements were hydrogen and helium. The heavier elements are created by fusion reactions within stars and in the explosions of dying stars. The hypothesis is that the early stars should have been bigger and brighter.
Steven Finkelstein, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin who was not involved with the research, said that Earendel looked hot and massive.
It supports the idea of bigger stars in the early universe.
Earendel, a magnified star, should be able to be found by the telescope, although how many are lined up with a lens remains to be seen. It might be possible to spot some stars at a red shift between 10 and 20 million years after the Big bang.
It's right in that window when we think the first stars are forming, according to Dr. Finkelstein.
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