JWST Photographs Universe’s Most Distant Known Star

Earendel started shining just 900 million years after the Big Bang and is only observable because of an extraordinary cosmic coincidence.

JWST
(Credit:joshimerbin/Shutterstock)

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One of the great challenges for astronomers is to understand when the first stars formed and what they were like. They already have some clues.

First, hydrogen and helium formed about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. The first stars were made of this. And second, the oldest galaxies formed about 400 million years after the Big Bang.

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