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Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI
The farthest star ever discovered could have been incorrectly classified: instead of a single star, the object – nicknamed Earendel from the old English word “Morning Star” – can be a stars cluster, a group of stars binding and forming a cloud of gas and dust, new research shows.
The Hablo Space Telescope was thought to be 2022, Earendel was a star that made up 900 million years after the Great Bang, when the universe was only 7% of its current age.
Now in a study published on July 31 Astrophysical magazineAstronomers used it James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to look good at Earendel. They wanted to investigate the possibility that Earendel could be more than one star or binary system, as previously thought, and a compact star cluster.
They found that Earendel’s spectral features correspond to the ball clusters – this type of star cluster – found in a local universe.
“What calms down this job is that if Earendel is actually a stars cluster, it’s not unexpected!” Massimo PascaleLive Science, a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, Astronomy and the main author of the study, told e -mail. In the letter. “[This] The work finds that Earendel looks quite matched with how we hope that the ball clusters we see in the local universe would have looked like in the first billions of the universe. “
An ancient object
Earendel, located in the Sunrise Arc Galaxy, was found in 12.9 billion light -years from us through a phenomenon known as a gravitational lens, a phenomenon intended for Einstein’s theory of general relativity in which mass objects bends them past. The massive cluster of galaxies between the Earth and the Earendel is so large that it distorts the fabric of space, creating a magnifying effect that allowed astronomers to observe the light of Earendel, which would otherwise be too weak to detect. Studies show that this gravitational lens effect will look at least 4,000 times higher.
This increased power is the strongest in some special regions. If the star or galaxy is near one of these regions, its image can be increased hundreds or thousands of times more pronounced than usual. It seems that Earendel is sitting very close to one of these “sweet places”, so we can see it, even if it is almost 12.9 billion light -years. Such almost perfect coordination is incredibly rare, so astronomers forced the considering alternative explanation outside of one star.
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After Discovery of Earendel in 2022Researchers analyzed the object using data from the infrared images of the close -up of JWST. After investigating its brightness and size, they completed That Earendel can be a huge star, more than twice -hot than the sun, and about a million times a glow than our star. In Earendel’s color, astronomers also found a hint of the presence of a cooler companion star.
“After some of the latest works have shown that Earendel (but not necessarily) could be much larger than before, I was convinced that it was worth exploring the star cluster scenario,” said Pascale .. said .. said.
Using the JWST NIRSPEC instrument spectroscopic data, Pascale and the team investigated Earendel’s age and metal quantity.
The team looked at the Earendel spectroscopic continuity, which essentially shows how smoothly its brightness is changing at different wavelengths of light. This model was in line with what could be expected from the stars cluster and at least matched the combined light of several stars.
“The new part of this study is the NirSpec spectrum, which provides a little more information than possible using NIRCAM data,” NIRCAM said, “said Brian WelchMaryland University and NASA Goddard Space Center Podoctoral Researcher, who led a team who was in 2022. Discovered Earendel but did not participate in a new study.
However, Welch does not believe that new data is sufficient to confirm that Earendel is a stars cluster.
“NirSpec spectrum resolution [instrument]Lens stars and star cluster spectrum can be very similar. Therefore, it is important to consider all available data in an attempt to classify these highly enlarged objects, ”Welch said in an email.
Researchers only examined the possibility of the Star Cluster. They did not study all possible scenarios, such as the Earendel is a single star or several star system and compares results.
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“The measurement is solid and well done, but with the hypothesis of the star cluster only, the study is limited,” Welch noted.
Both Pascale and Welch agreed that the key to the Earendel secret solution is to monitor microspective effects. Microlensing is a gravitational lens subtype, during which the passing object temporarily distorts the image of a distant object when a close object is in front of it when it passes. Changes in brightness due to microlenization are more noticeable when distant objects are small – for example, stars, planet or star system – not much larger stars.
“It will be interesting to see what the future JWST programs can do to further show the nature of Earendel,” said Pascale.