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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Hubble peers through cosmic lens to capture most distant star ever seen [berkeley.edu]

The discovery of the star, which astronomers often refer to as Icarus rather than by its formal name, MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1 (LS1), kicks off a new technique for astronomers to study individual stars in galaxies formed during the earliest days of the universe. These observations can provide a rare look at how stars evolve, especially the most luminous ones.

"For the first time ever we're seeing an individual normal star – not a supernova, not a gamma ray burst, but a single stable star – at a distance of nine billion light years," said Alex Filippenko, a professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley and one of many co-authors of the report. "These lenses are amazing cosmic telescopes."

The astronomy team also used Icarus to test and reject one theory of dark matter – that it consists of numerous primordial black holes lurking inside galaxy clusters – and to probe the make-up of normal matter and dark matter in the galaxy cluster.

Also at NASA [nasa.gov].

See also: SN Refsdal [wikipedia.org]

Extreme magnification of an individual star at redshift 1.5 by a galaxy-cluster lens [nature.com] (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41550-018-0430-3) (DX [doi.org])

Original Submission