James Webb Telescope takes a photo of the most distant star in the Universe - Earendil

The James Webb Telescope has taken a photo of the most distant star in the Universe known at the moment. The luminary, which was named Earendil (WHL0137-LS), was discovered only a few months ago.

This was reported by Space.com on Wednesday, August 3. The star was named after a character in the novel "The Silmarillion" by writer John Ronald Ruel Tolkien.

The luminary was discovered using gravitational lensing of a deep-field image obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope

Earendil is located 12.9 billion light years from Earth. It is so dim that it is not easy to find it in images taken by James Webb. In the Hubble image, it looks like a white dot above a cluster of galaxies, and it can be seen by comparing the images obtained by the two telescopes.

The launch of the telescope has been postponed several times since 2007. In 2022, it was planned to be launched on December 18, then the launch was postponed to December 22, and later to December 24.

The launch took place on December 25 - an Ariane 5 rocket with an orbiting telescope took off from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. After the device separated from the spacecraft, it will study the oldest stars and galaxies in the universe that formed after the Big Bang, as well as search for potentially habitable planets.

The James Webb telescope has many times greater technical capabilities than its world-famous predecessor, the Hubble.

As reported by OBOZREVATEL, on July 12, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) showed photos of deep space taken by the new James Webb telescope. The images have already been dubbed "the dawn of a new era in astronomy."

The published images show the SMACS 0723 galaxy cluster.

Only verified information is available on our Obozrevatel Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!