The Sunrise Arc & Earendel: The Most Distant Star Ever Detected | NASA Webb

The Sunrise Arc & Earendel: The Most Distant Star Ever Detected | NASA Webb

The first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows a massive galaxy cluster called WHL0137-08. It contains the most strongly magnified galaxy known in the universe’s first billion years—the Sunrise Arc, and within that galaxy, the most distant star ever detected—Earendel. The Sunrise Arc appears just below the diffraction spike at the 5 o’clock position. The fuzzier, white galaxies at the center of the image are part of the galaxy cluster bound together by gravity. The various redder, curved galaxies are background galaxies picked up by Webb’s sensitive mirror.

The second image from the Webb Telescope shows an inset on the right side of the most strongly magnified galaxy known in the universe’s first billion years—the Sunrise Arc. Within that galaxy is the most distant star ever detected—Earendel—first discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Observations using Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) reveals the star to be a massive B-type star more than twice as hot as our Sun, and about a million times more luminous. The star is approximately 12.9 billion light-years away. Earendel is positioned along a wrinkle in spacetime that gives it extreme magnification, allowing it to emerge into view from its host galaxy, which appears as a red smear across the sky. The star is detectable only due to the combined power of human technology and nature via an effect called gravitational lensing.

Credits: NASA, European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency

Dan Coe (STScI/AURA for ESA, JHU), Brian Welch (NASA-GSFC, UMD)

Image Processing: Zolt G. Levay

Release Date: Aug. 9, 2023

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