They capture the most distant known star in the universe

Space telescope James Webb caught the eye The most distant star known in the universeRevealed by Webb’s predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, a few months ago.

A star named Irandel A JRR Tolkien character in The Lord of the Rings prequel ‘The Silmarillion’ was initially discovered through gravitational lensing in a deep-field image from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The star took 12.9 billion light years for its light to reach Earth. It is so faint that it may be very difficult to find it in a new telescope image Space James Webb, it was posted on Twitter on August 2 by a group of astronomers using the Cosmic Spring JWST account.

The original Hubble image provides guidance on where to look through the magnified crop. Mainly Erendel A small white dot beneath distant galaxies. By comparing the Hubble image with the image captured by Webb, Erendel can be seen.

“We are excited to share the first JWST image of Eerendel, the most distant known star in our universe. Focused and magnified by a massive galaxyCosmic Spring astronomers wrote in a tweet that the observations occurred on Saturday, July 30.

Tweet refers to gravitational lensing, which takes advantage of how massive bodies like galaxy clusters or supermassive black holes deflect light from objects behind them.

When light passes through such a body, Acts like passing through the lens of a telescope, increasing, but also decaying. Therefore, the use of gravitational bows extends the reach of telescopes like the Hubble and Webb, allowing them to look more telescopes and in greater detail, according to Space.com.

Earendel, also known by its proper name WHL0137-LS, is located in the constellation Cetus.