The Hubble Space Telescope has glimpsed the most distant star ever observed, shining 28 billion light-years away. And the star can be between 50 and 500 times more massive than our Sun and millions of times brighter.
It is the most distant detection of a star yet, at 900 million years after the Big Bang. Astronomers have nicknamed the star Earendel, derived from an Old English word meaning “morning star” or “rising light”.
A study detailing the findings published this Wednesday (30) in the journal Nature.
This observation breaks the record set by Hubble in 2018, when it observed a star that existed when the universe was about four billion years old. Earendel is so far away that it took starlight 12.9 billion years to reach us.
This observation by Earendel could help astronomers probe the early years of the universe.
“As we examine the cosmos, we also look back in time, so these extreme high-resolution observations allow us to understand the building blocks of some of the earliest galaxies,” said study co-author Victoria Strait, a postdoctoral researcher at Cosmic Dawn Center in Copenhagen, in a statement.
“When the light we see from Earendel was emitted, the Universe was less than a billion years old; only 6% of your current age. 13 billion years it took light to reach us, the Universe has expanded and is now a staggering 28 billion light years away.”
The stars we see in the night sky exist in our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Incredibly powerful telescopes can only see individual stars within the nearest galaxies. But distant galaxies look like a blur of mixed light from the billions of stars they contain.
But gravitational lensing, predicted by Albert Einstein, allows for a deeper view of the distant universe. Gravitational lensing occurs when closer objects act like a magnifying glass for distant objects. Gravity essentially distorts and magnifies light from distant background galaxies.
When light passes close to massive objects, it follows a curve around that object. If that object is between Earth (or, in this case, Hubble) and the distant light source, it can deflect and send light in our direction, acting as a lens to amplify its intensity.
Many distant galaxies have been found this way.
In this case, the alignment of a massive cluster of galaxies acted like a magnifying glass and intensified Earendel’s light thousands of times. This gravitational lens, combined with nine hours of Hubble observation and an international team of astronomers, created the record-breaking image.
“Typically at these distances, entire galaxies look like tiny specks, with the light of millions of stars mixing together,” lead author Brian Welch, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said in a statement. “The galaxy that hosts this star has been magnified and distorted by gravitational lensing into a long crescent we call the Sunrise Arc.”
To ensure this is indeed a single star, rather than two located very close together, the research team will use the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope to observe Earendel. Webb can also reveal the star’s temperature and mass.
“With James Webb, we will be able to confirm that Earendel is indeed just a star and at the same time quantify what kind of star it is,” said study co-author Sune Toft, leader of the Cosmic Dawn Center and a Niels professor at the Bohr Institute. in Copenhagen in a statement. “Webb will even allow us to measure its chemical composition. Potentially, Earendel could be the first known example of the Universe’s first generation of stars.”
Astronomers want to know more about the star’s composition because it was formed shortly after the beginning of the universe, long before the universe was filled with the heavy elements created by the death of massive stars.
Webb could reveal whether Earendel is largely made of primordial hydrogen and helium, making it a Population III star — the stars would supposedly exist shortly after the big bang.
“Earendel has been around for so long that it may not have the same raw materials as the stars around us today,” Welch said.
“Studying Earendel will be a window into an era of the universe we are unfamiliar with, but which led to everything we know. It’s like we’re reading a really interesting book, but we start with the second chapter, and now we’ll have a chance to see how it all started.”
And the Webb telescope can help astronomers find stars even further away than Hubble can find.
“With Webb, we can see stars even further away than Earendel, which would be incredibly exciting,” said Welch. “We will go as far as possible. I would love to see Webb break Earendel’s distance record.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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