Webb Telescope unveils colours of Earendel, the farthest star ever observed

WEB DESK: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed colours of Earendel, the most distant star ever detected.

The Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) unveiled Earendel as a colossal B-type star, exhibiting temperatures exceeding double that of our Sun and shining a million times brighter.

Earendel, nestled within the Sunrise Arc galaxy, was discernible due to a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, amplified by its expected alignment behind a space-time distortion caused by the vast galaxy cluster WHL0137-08. This cluster’s immense mass bends space itself, acting like a magnifying glass for astronomers.

While gravitational lensing often results in multiple appearances of celestial features, Earendel stands out as a singular point of light in Webb’s advanced infrared imaging. Astronomers have deduced that this star is magnified by a factor surpassing 4,000, making it the remotest star ever observed, seen a billion years after the universe’s inception. 

The prior record was held by a star, observed by Hubble, approximately 4 billion years post the big bang.

The research team remains optimistic about potentially detecting stars from the universe’s inaugural generation, composed solely of big bang remnants – hydrogen and helium.

The James Webb Space Telescope, a collaborative endeavour involving NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency, stands as the world’s leading space science observatory, unravelling cosmic mysteries and our place within them.