WHL0137-LS, also known as Earendel, is a star in the constellation of Cetus. Discovered in 2022 by the Hubble Space Telescope, it is the earliest and most distant known star, at a comoving distance of 28 billion light-years.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured a new image revealing the colors of Earendel, the farthest star ever detected.
It’s more than twice as hot as the sun, and “about a million times more luminous,” NASA said in a press release last week.
Webb is 100 times more powerful than Hubble, though, and it captured previously unseen colors of the distant star.
Thanks to the Webb Telescope’s powerful infrared vision, though, scientists believe they can see, for the first time, a “cooler, redder companion star” beside Earendel.
Webb’s keen eye also revealed new star clusters and star-forming regions within the Sunrise Arc.
In Earendel’s case, it helps that the gravity from a massive cluster of galaxies is magnifying our view of the star.