The Hubble space telescope has been making headlines since its discovery last year as it revealed what was thought to be the most distant star ever found, named Earendel. However, a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters suggests that this finding might not be entirely accurate.
Earendel was spotted due to gravitational lensing, which allowed us to see a star cluster 28 billion light-years away. Initially, it was estimated to be around 50 times more massive than our Sun. But astronomers have been cautious from the start, speculating that Earendel might actually be a binary pair.
A new paper by Massimo Pascale and his team has analyzed Earendel’s spectrum using stellar population modeling. The results suggest that what we’re seeing could be an ancient star cluster, rather than a single star or a binary pair. The team found that the object is metal-poor and similar in composition to other objects on the “Sunrise Arc,” which was previously thought to be a star cluster.
The study’s lead author notes that if Earendel is indeed a star cluster, it aligns with what our models predicted about this age of the cosmos. In fact, finding that Earendel seems consistent with how globular clusters would have looked in the first billion years of the universe is “reassuring.”
While the discovery of Earendel has generated excitement, this new study provides a more nuanced understanding of its nature. As the field of astronomy continues to evolve, we can expect more surprises and unexpected findings as we explore the distant universe.
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Source: https://www.iflscience.com/earendel-the-most-distant-star-ever-seen-might-not-be-what-we-thought-80453