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Hubble Space Telescope Spots Oldest and Farthest Star Known
Astronomers announced on Wednesday the discovery of the farthest and oldest star ever seen, a dot of light that shined 12.9 billion years ago, or just 900 million years after the Big Bang that gave birth to the universe.
That means the light from the star traveled 12.9 billion light-years to reach Earth.
The finding was part of efforts using the Hubble Space Telescope to search for some of the universe's farthest and earliest galaxies. By a lucky coincidence, the astronomers were able to discern a single star system within one of those galaxies.
[...] The star spotted by Mr. Welch and his colleagues possesses what astronomers call a red shift of 6.2, far higher than the previous record-holder for most distant single star. That star, reported in 2018, had a red shift of 1.5, corresponding to when the universe was about four billion years old.
The researchers nicknamed the new star Earendel — Old English for "morning star." If it is a single star, the astronomers estimate that it is a big one — some 50 times the mass of our sun. It could also be a system of two or more stars.
The alignment of Earendel and the galaxy cluster will persist for years, so Earendel will be one of the targets during the first year of observations by the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope, which has a larger mirror than Hubble and gathers light at the longer infrared wavelengths.
A highly magnified star at redshift 6.2
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04449-y
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2022, @09:12PM (5 children)
"Shined"? Simple past tense? What is happening to the American English? First everyone starts saying "pleaded" for the perfectly correct "pled", and no doubt we will have people who "bleeded" to death. It is called the Perfect tense, a past that is completed, as in what this star did 12.9 billion years ago, so it should say:
Next; the pluperfect tense, and the future perfect, and the optative case for future past events.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2022, @09:34PM (2 children)
> It is called the Perfect tense, a past that is completed...
BZZZT. The perfect tense is actually a recent past that is ongoing. "I have gone to the shops" = I am still at the shops.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2022, @09:55PM (1 child)
It is worse than I thought. Perfect is completed action. Simple past is used for continuing action, often with a gerund, to construct the past progressive case. But then it would be:
But, you know, it really has completed all that shining 12.9 billion years ago, and may not even still exist, so the perfect tense is more appropriate. Definitely not "shined", however.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2022, @10:44PM
It depends on your definition of time, or simultaneity. I'll wait.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2022, @09:37PM
☐ 🇬🇧 traditional English
☒ 🇺🇸 simplified English
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2022, @09:48PM
as we are looking at it now, is it not present tense