NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured Earendel, the oldest and most distant star observed yet in the universe. This star is actually named after a character in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” prequel “The Silmarillion,” was found in a Hubble image with gravitational lensing. The light from this star took 12.9 billion light-years to reach Earth and requires an extremely powerful telescope to detect.
Watch these galaxies brighten and appear as the Hubble image fades into the JWST image of the same galaxy cluster. pic.twitter.com/FkfGOrfAS7
— Cosmic Spring JWST (@CosmicSprngJWST) August 2, 2022
Gravitational lensing basically extends the range of telescopes by detecting objects through bent light from objects that are behind black holes. When this bent light passes by the black holes, it behaves as if the light were passing through the telescope lens. This got us thinking…now if AI was able to boost Roundhay Garden Scene, the oldest known film, to 60FPS we can only imagine what it can do with these JWST images.
- SUPERIOR OPTICS: The Celestron 70mm Travel Scope features high-quality, fully-coated glass optics, a potent 70mm objective lens, a lightweight frame,...
- POWERFUL EYEPIECES FOR UP-CLOSE VIEWING: Our telescope for astronomy beginners is equipped with two high-quality eyepieces (20mm and 10mm) that...
- LARGE 70MM OBJECTIVE LENS: Our refractor telescope is equipped with a large 70mm aperture objective lens that provides enhanced, brighter views...
JWST was designed to study the first stars. Until recently, we assumed that meant populations of stars within the first galaxies. But in the past three years, three individual strongly lensed stars have been discovered,” said astronomers from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland.
