Earendel, the furthest ever, the earliest star, probably not what it looks like

A natural quirk that helps amplify extreme cosmic objects allows space The telescope sees a star that existed when the universe was only 900 million years old.

NASA’s Hubble Observatory made its discovery in 2022, making it the furthest and earliest star ever. Astronomers name it Earendelmeans “morning star” in old English.

A year later, the scientists followed James Webb Space Telescope Because it has a larger mirror and collects light at longer infrared wavelengths. By then, scientists thought they might have discovered a partner star, and even Weber’s unprecedented power, they were technically surprised.

Now, A new study It shows that Earendel’s amazingly distant starlight may be more than just a star or close-range. The paper is published exist Astrophysical Diary Letterthe previous Weber telescope data was analyzed using computer models and found a compelling situation where Earendel might actually be a cluster of stars.

“My secret hope is that this is a personal star,” Massimo Pascale, who hosts the UC Berkeley study, told Mashable.

Scientists are eager to find and study stars because such relics may solve the mysteries of the ancient universe, which is believed to be in the age of 13.8 billion years.

Hubble DEDesignated ear plugs Through a phenomenon called a gravity lens – when the galaxy cluster in the telescope viewpoint foreground enlarges and bends its light beyond it. NASA often illustrates this using analogy of bowling balls placed on trampolines, which represent a huge celestial object, the trampoline is a fabric of space and time. Otherwise, the light that will propagate a straight curve will be distorted as it passes through that distorted space and time. It’s like adding a more powerful lens to a telescope.

but Gravity lens Also with the potential to copy or stretch objects, Funhouse images can create images of multiple irregular copies.

Since the Galaxy cluster WHL0137-08 is a huge magnifying glass in the sky, Earendel’s incredibly distant galaxy, the light from Sunrise Arc highlights Hubble’s sight. Scientists can think of it as 12.9 billion years ago. But today, because the universe has also extended Universe expansionIt is estimated that the distance from the Earth is 28 billion light years.

Astronomers have a lot of experience in identifying the effects of gravitational lenses, but this is not always the case. In 1987, the huge blue arc was considered hundreds of miles long, and was initially considered one of the largest things ever discovered in the universe. Later that year, scientists discovered they were studying a distortion caused by clusters of galaxies. The New York Times Posted an about The meaning of “weird” Einstein’s general theory of relativity, titled “The huge cosmic object is relegated to the raage building in Haishi”.

For Earendel, some astronomers continue to doubt whether it is indeed a star. Pascale is now an Einstein researcher at UCLA, and collaborators decided to reevaluate its scale, which could be low-field Dark mattera mysterious and rich substance that does not emit light or interact with light. These clumps of dark matter may affect the magnification. With these effects in mind, the size of the Earendel may be consistent with the star cluster.

Researchers will be Earendel with widely recognized cluster In the same galaxy, it is called 1B. What they found was that Earendel and 1B clusters had similar characteristics: They were 3 billion to 150 million years old in Weber’s snapshots, they lacked the heavy elements produced by “newer” stars, and were similar to the ancient clusters of stars nearby.

According to this study, while 1B is very suitable in the cluster model, so is Earendel.

“In order to make the earendel a binary, or two stars, chances of being aimed at the foreground galaxy cluster, resulting in a gravity lens effect, is an incredible luck,” Pascale told Mashable. “If this is a star group, then accidental consistency-not to be that perfect.”

Although the new paper does not speculate on how many stars may be in such a cluster, Pascal said its mass may be equal to hundreds of thousands of suns or more.

Answering the question of whether Earendel is a Lone Star is the question of watching flickering. Through multiple observations, scientists may be able to suddenly capture the light source and briefly become brighter. The clusters do not show such fluctuations, as the light from all other stars will wash it off.

Although Pascale said it was expensive to ensure that telescopes were conducted for research, it might be worth the effort for the scientific community.

So far, colleagues seem willing to consider interstellar clusters as an explanation for Earendel, but Pascale stressed that the paper does not explicitly prove this: previous teams have also made the discovery fascinating. He hopes the new study will only add discourse.

“Maybe everyone keeps their secrets more private, but most people are happy to say, ‘Yes, a star group seems like a choice.'” he said.