Recently, astronomers from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have announced exciting findings from their observations of the furthest visible star in the universe. With their famed James Webb Space Telescope, they have found evidence that suggests the most distant star visible to the human eye is not alone – it has a companion.
The star in question is located 9 billion light-years away, and its distant light was first detected with the Atacama Large Millimetre/Submillimetre Array (ALMA) in 2019. Those findings made this star the most distant ever seen at the time, and now the James Webb Space Telescope has taken it a step further with its new observations.
The observations showed an object close to the star – separated by only 0.3 arcseconds – that has been concluded to be its companion. Using the data collected by the telescope, astronomers were able to determine that this object is likely composed of hot gases, similarly to the star.
This is an exciting and important new discovery, as it is the first time a companion to the most distant visible star has been seen. Furthermore, this provides more evidence that even the most distant stars have a companion – something that has long been theorized but could not be proven until now.
Given that this object was found to be just 0.3 arcseconds away, it can be assumed that these two stars are either in a binary system or at least intricately linked. This means that their evolution and fate could be intertwined – an incredibly intriguing phenomenon to consider when looking at the vastness of space.
The Webb Telescope image suggests that this is likely not the only such star pairing in the universe. With further research and observations, astronomers may be able to find more distant stars and their companions, helping them to uncover more about the relationship between the stars and in turn, the universe.
This discovery makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the universe around us and how distant stars can be linked together. The new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope open up a variety of possibilities for future research, and it will be interesting to see what other major discoveries we might uncover.
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