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NASA, the American space agency, announced this Wednesday (30) that a new record has been broken by science with the discovery of most distant star ever seen by astronomers, Earendel (“morning star”, in Old English).
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O astro, which is 12.9 billion light years from Earth, existed when the universe was about 4 billion years old, or 30% of its current age. The previous record was for the star Icarus, whose light took 9 billion years to reach Earth.
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“We almost didn’t believe it at first, it was much further away than the previous star, farther away and with a higher redshift,” said astronomer Brian Welch of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, lead author of the paper describing the phenomenon. discovery, published in the journal Nature.
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The finding was made from data collected during the RELICS program (Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey) do Hubble.
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According to scientists, the star existed so long ago that may not have the same raw materials as today’s stars.
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Arrow indicates location of the most distant star ever seen by science, Earendel. — Photo: NASA
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“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 pretty interesting book, but we started with the second chapter and now we’ll have a chance to see how it all started,” Welch said.
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Scientists believe that Earendel has at least 50 times the mass of our Sun and be millions of times brighterrivaling the most massive stars known.
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“Typically, at this distance, entire galaxies look like tiny specks, with the light of millions of stars mixing in,” Welch said. “The galaxy that hosts this star has been magnified and distorted by gravitational lensing into a long crescent we call the Sunrise Arc.”
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According to NASA, the expectation is now that the star will be observed by the James Webb Space Telescope and that the high sensitivity of the instrument will allow more detailed observations of Eearendel.
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“With Webb, we’ll be able to see stars even further away than Earendel, which would be incredibly exciting,” said Welch. “Let’s go back as far as we can. I would love to see Webb break Earendel’s distance record.”
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