{"id":14711,"date":"2025-09-12T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/?p=14711"},"modified":"2025-09-09T14:21:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T12:21:12","slug":"the-most-distant-star-is-not-a-star-earendels-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/the-most-distant-star-is-not-a-star-earendels-secrets\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers Were Sure It Was a Star. Now They Have Serious Doubts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Distant Cosmic Wanderer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Our story begins in 2022. That&#8217;s when the Hubble Space Telescope spotted an object in space that <strong>scientists identified as the most distant star known to humanity.<\/strong> It is located 28 billion light-years away from Earth, although its light traveled to us for 12.9 billion years. This difference is a result of the continuous expansion of the universe. <strong>28 billion light-years is the current distance, but when the star&#8217;s light was traveling through space, the universe was smaller.<\/strong> The path it traveled is therefore several billion light-years shorter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Soon after the discovery, the object was designated WHL0137-LS, but astronomers soon came up with the name Earendel. In Old English, this means \u201cmorning star\u201d or \u201crising light.\u201d How were we even able to notice such a distant star? It was all thanks to something called gravitational lensing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Massive objects (e.g., galaxies or black holes) can bend spacetime, including light that passes near them. It so happens that between Earendel and Earth, there is a galaxy cluster massive enough to magnify the light from this distant object passing near it, like a magnifying glass or a telescope. According to the research, <strong>Earendel is visible to us as 4,000 times larger than it would be without the influence of another massive body.<\/strong> However, the star&#8217;s unique position raised doubts among researchers about its true nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gravitational lensing was also used to discover one of the largest black holes known to humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read more:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/the-oldest-black-hole-revealed-its-secrets-unfold\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mysterious Red Dots in Space: What Are These Strange Objects?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Most Distant Star Is\u2026 Not a Star<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>For gravitational lensing to affect a star in this way, it must be located in the right place relative to the light-bending massive object. Such situations are very rare in the universe. That&#8217;s why scientists began to ask themselves whether Earendel was actually a star or a slightly larger object.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A hypothesis put forward by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, says that in this case, we are not dealing with a star, but a star cluster. The team of scientists recently published their findings in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.3847\/2041-8213\/aded93\/meta\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">The Astrophysical Journal Letters<\/a><\/em>. The measurements were carried out with precise instruments from the James Webb Space Telescope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Is Earendel a Star Cluster?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>As part of the measurements, it was determined that the spectrum of light emitted by Earendel contains fragments of varying brightness. This may indicate that we are not dealing with a single star at all, but rather a cluster of them. <strong>The gravitationally bound objects may resemble our closest cosmic neighbor, Alpha Centauri.<\/strong> This system consists of three stars, which, however, look like a single, exceptionally bright object to the naked eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since the closest star system to us appears as one star in the sky, not three, it&#8217;s not surprising what&#8217;s happening with Earendel. <strong>Such a distant object can appear to be a single star even with the use of specialized instruments.<\/strong> However, more precise measurements indicate that we may actually be dealing with a cluster. Astronomers emphasize that further observations are necessary to prove this beyond any doubt. Perhaps future observations will reveal exactly how many objects the most distant star is made of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Read the original article:<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/najbardziej-odlegla-gwiazda-to-nie-gwiazda-earendel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Astronomowie byli pewni, \u017ce\u00a0to\u00a0gwiazda. Teraz maj\u0105 powa\u017cne w\u0105tpliwo\u015bci<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was supposed to be the most distant star ever seen by humankind. Earendel\u2014an object located 28 billion light-years away\u2014quickly became a symbol of the limits of human curiosity. But the latest discoveries challenge everything that was previously thought about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":275,"featured_media":14712,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[1741,1214,834,1291,1677,1740,1302],"class_list":["post-14711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-alfa-centauri","tag-cosmos","tag-science","tag-space","tag-space-research","tag-star","tag-universe"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Most Distant Star... Is Not a Star. Earendel&#039;s Secrets<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Earendel is the most distant star we know of. But scientists now suspect it may not be a star at all. What is it, then?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/the-most-distant-star-is-not-a-star-earendels-secrets\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Most Distant Star... Is Not a Star. Earendel&#039;s Secrets\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Earendel is the most distant star we know of. But scientists now suspect it may not be a star at all. What is it, then?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/the-most-distant-star-is-not-a-star-earendels-secrets\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Holistic News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/portalHolisticNews\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-12T06:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/most-distant-star.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Maciej Bartusik\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@news_holistic\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@news_holistic\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Maciej Bartusik\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/holistic.news\\\/en\\\/the-most-distant-star-is-not-a-star-earendels-secrets\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/holistic.news\\\/en\\\/the-most-distant-star-is-not-a-star-earendels-secrets\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Maciej Bartusik\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/holistic.news\\\/en\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/0758fb0cf338b71ce51e2da415bc266c\"},\"headline\":\"Astronomers Were Sure It Was a Star. 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