Search results
MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1. A galactic cluster (left) magnified a distant star (now named Icarus) more than 2,000 times, making it visible in 2016 from Earth (lower right), 9.34 billion light-years away—although visible in 2016, the star was not visible in 2011 (upper right).
Apr 3, 2018 · By examining the light coming from Icarus, the researchers determined that it’s a blue supergiant, which is hotter, larger and could even be hundreds of thousands of times brighter than...
Mar 30, 2022 · NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has established an extraordinary new benchmark: detecting the light of a star that existed within the first billion years after the universe’s birth in the big bang – the farthest individual star ever seen to date.
Apr 2, 2018 · Through a quirk of nature called “gravitational lensing,” a natural lens in space amplified a very distant star’s light. Astronomers using Hubble took advantage of this phenomenon to pinpoint the faraway star and set a new distance record for the farthest individual star ever seen.
- Gravitational Lensing
- Dark Matter
- Star Type
- Facts
- Name
- Location
- Constellation
Gravitational lensing is a phenomenon that occurs when light from a background object is bent by a massive object as it travels from the source to the observer. In the case of Icarus, gravity from the foreground galaxy cluster MACS J1149+2223 acts as a natural lens, a magnifying glass that bends the light of the faraway star and other distant objec...
Observations of Icarus with the Hubble Space Telescope over the course of 13 years gave scientists an opportunity to study the nature of dark matter in the galaxy cluster. Astronomers observed the objects floating around the foreground cluster to test the hypothesis that dark matter may primary be made of many primordial black holes, formed when th...
Icarus is a blue supergiant star of the spectral type B with a surface temperature between 11,000 and 14,000 K. Class B stars are exceptionally massive and luminous. They do not live very long lives. Due to their high mass, they burn through the hydrogen in the cores in only millions of years and evolve away from the main sequence. The light of Ica...
The discovery of Icarus was first reported in a study led by Patrick Kelly (University of Minnesota), published in the journal Nature Astronomyin 2018. The team that discovered the star also included Jose Diego of the Instituto de Física de Cantabria, Spain, Alex Filippenko of University of California, Berkeley, and Steven Rodney of the University ...
MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1 was nicknamed Icarus by the team of astronomers who discovered it. In Greek mythology, Icarus flew too close to the Sun with wings constructed from feathers and wax, fell into the sea, and drowned. Like the mythological character, the star had a fleeting moment of glory when it was briefly magnified. For the same reason, th...
Icarus lies in the eastern part of the constellation Leo, in the region above the Lion’s tail, near the border with Coma Berenices. At magnitude 29.9, the star cannot be seen in amateur telescopes. It would be invisible even to Hubble without the gravitational lensing.
Icarus is located in the constellation Leo. The zodiacal Lion occupies 947 square degrees of the northern sky and is the 12th largest of the 88 constellations. It was first listed by the Greco-Roman astronomer Ptolemy of Alexandria in his Almagest in the 2nd century CE, along with other Greek constellations. Leo is associated with the Nemean lion, ...
- 27.3 (normally 28.8)
- ≈28.4 (normally 29.9)
- ≈28.2 (normally 29.7)
- ≈27.9 (normally 29.4)
Apr 2, 2018 · The team initially discovered Icarus while using Hubble to detect and track a known supernova named Refsdal, whose light was predicted to soon be gravitationally lensed by the galaxy cluster...
People also ask
Why is Icarus the farthest star ever seen?
What type of star is Icarus?
Could Icarus help astronomers understand the evolution of the universe?
Why was the star Icarus named 'Icarus'?
Why is it called Icarus?
Can astronomers see Icarus?
Apr 3, 2018 · A group of astronomers had been monitoring a far-off supernova—the explosive death of a giant star—using the Hubble Space Telescope when they saw a new speck of light.
