Earendel is positioned along a ripple 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 whole scene is viewed through the distorted lens created by the galaxy cluster WHL0137-08 in the intervening space, which allows the galaxy’s features to be seen, but also warps their appearance — an effect astronomers call gravitational lensing.
“At that time it was 4 billion light-years away from the proto-Milky Way, but during the almost 13 billion years it took the light to reach us, the Universe has expanded so that it is now a staggering 28 billion light-years away.” But even such a brilliant, very high-mass star would be impossible to see at such a great distance without the aid of natural magnification by a massive galaxy cluster, WHL0137-08, sitting between us and Earendel.
“Normally at these distances, entire galaxies look like small smudges, with the light from millions of stars blending together,” Dr. Welch said.
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