If the discovery is confirmed by future observations, the primordial star Earendel could provide an unprecedented window into the early universe
When galaxies are seen this way, the light is warped into a characteristic arc. One of those magnified galaxies, now nicknamed“The galaxy that the star is in is gravitationally lensed into a long, thin, crescent-shaped arc,” says lead study author
Welch and the team calculated that the object had been magnified by a factor of thousands, meaning that it was much smaller than the smallest known star clusters. Even so, additional calculations revealed that the object—Earendel—was at least 50 times the sun’s mass, so as far as stars go, it was quite big.
Earendel lived in a universe that was very different from today—a cosmos still shaking off the turmoil of its radiant birth. In its infancy, the universe was mostly dark. There were no stars or galaxies, just an expanding sea of slowly cooling hydrogen gas. After half a billion years or so, the lights turned on. The first stars emerged from that gas and clumped together to make galaxies, while black holes formed amid the activity. The cosmic dark ages were over.
, when ultraviolet radiation erupting from short-lived, violently dying stars baked away the obscuring fog, Rigby says, allowing starlight to travel freely through the cosmos.Follow-up observations with NASA’s newest space observatory, the, will help the team better measure Earendel’s temperature and brightness. Astronomers will also be able to take a census of the chemical elements present in the star and galaxy.