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That is the most

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distant individual star
that has been seen so far.

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It's so far away that it exists at a time

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that the universe
was only about 900 million years old

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as compared to its current age,
which is about 13.8 billion years.

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So we're really looking back into a time
when the universe was much different

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than it is today.

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And being able to see an individual star
at this time is really exciting.

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We've been able to see entire galaxies
at this distance, but

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that's the light from millions of stars
all blended together.

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So being able to pick out just this one
individual star is really exciting,

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and it gives us a really awesome
opportunity to study it in a lot of detail

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and get a better sense of what stars
in the early universe look like.

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Hubble was able
to see this thanks to its incredible power

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and also the assistance from a cosmic
telescope known as a gravitational lens.

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So there's a very massive cluster of
galaxies that's sitting in the foreground,

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and that cluster
actually bends the space around it.

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And as the light from this background
galaxy travels through that bend space,

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it gets magnified and distorted
as it goes through this bend space.

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And what that gives us
is an image of the galaxy

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that's spread out into this long,
crescent shaped arc

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that's much brighter
than we could normally see this galaxy.

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And in particular, in one unique spot,
the magnification that we get from

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this gravitational lensing effect
really increases dramatically.

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And the star just happens
to be sitting right at that point

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where it's magnified
by a factor of several thousand.

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So it's really highly magnified,
which is the way that we're able

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to pick out the light from just this one
individual star among this this

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entire galaxy.

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So when we

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look out at distant objects, because light
travels at a finite speed, it

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takes that light a certain amount of time
to get from its source to us.

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And as we look into more and more distant
objects,

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we're basically
looking into the ever more distant past

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as we look at things that are emitting
light billions of years ago.

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So in this particular case,
the object is so distant

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that if the light came from it
only 900 million years after the Big Bang.

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So it's been traveling towards us
for about 12.8 billion years.

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So we're really
this really gives us a window

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into what the universe
was like that back in that early day.

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And it looks at the universe we know
looks a lot different back at that point.

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So the opportunity to study this one
individual star

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at this really early stage of the universe
is really exciting and really gives us a

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unique view into how the universe worked
and how these stars formed and came to be

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in the universe.

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Hubble and Webb
are going to be incredibly complementary.

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So Hubble is designed to look at
the ultraviolet and optical wavelengths.

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That's bluer light than what we can see
with our eyes in the ultraviolet.

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And then optical is the light that we see
with our own eyes.

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Meanwhile, the Webb telescope was designed
to look into the infrared.

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So that's light that's redder than what
we can see with our own eyes.

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So together they give a really complete
picture across this broad

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range of wavelengths for all these distant
objects that we can look at.

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And each both of them together
can do a much better job

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than either one could do on their own.

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You can learn more

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at nasa.gov/Hubble
or follow on social media @NASAHubble

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So we
know that this is a very massive star.

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We have it
at least 50 times the mass of the sun,

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which is much larger than a typical star
in the local universe.

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There are certainly examples
of stars of this mass,

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but they're not nearly as common
as much smaller stars.

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We expect that in the distant universe,
these massive stars might be a little bit

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more common.

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So being able to study one
directly is going to be really exciting.

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We also know that in the early universe,
the chemical composition

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of stars might look
a little bit different than it does today.

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So there haven't there hasn't
been as much time for multiple generations

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of stars to live and die
and enrich the surrounding

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environment with the heavier elements
that they produce.

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So being able to study this massive star
at a time when the universe was made up

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of slightly different
materials is going to be really exciting

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and a really great way
to figure out how these stars are forming

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and what they look like
and how they live and how they evolve

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Hubble is doing great.

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It is continuing to make fascinating
discoveries.

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It's continuing to collect
amazing observations of the universe,

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and we have a great team of people
that's working on it,

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and we really do expect it to continue
to make groundbreaking discoveries

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for years to come

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I am definitely most looking forward
to my own observations.

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So we have Hubble and Webb time
as scheduled for this coming year

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to look at this lens star though,
and it's the combination of the two

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is going to be really exciting
to get a much better constraint on

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what the star looks like and what it was
formed from and what type of star it is.

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So I'm definitely most excited for those

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things.

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Yeah, we nicknamed the star Earendel,

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which is an old English word
that means Morning Star.

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So this this epic of the universe

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is generally referred to as Cosmic Dawn.

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Since it's the time when these first stars
are starting

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to form in the first galaxies
or taking shape and sort of the

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the first light of the universe
is just breaking through.

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So we figured that

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a morning star
nickname would fit in really well.

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And I liked the way
that Earendel sounded.

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It is also the old English word
that J.R.R.

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Tolkien used as the name of a character
from his Silmarillion.

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So I'm a huge Tolkien fan as well,

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so that symmetry fit in really well,

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and it just seemed like
a really great choice for the name

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we were looking at the galaxy

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originally, so the lens galaxy
that the star is a part of.

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As I mentioned,

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with gravitational lensing,

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it spreads these galaxies
out into these long crescent shaped arcs.

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And this particular one
was the longest arc that had been seen

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of a galaxy that was within the first
billion years of the universe.

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So it seemed like
a really interesting galaxy to study.

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And then we just kind of

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stumbled on to the star
as we were modeling the lensing effect.

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It turned out that our models kept
predicting that at this one point,

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this one bright point on the arc
was going to be very highly magnified.

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We almost didn't believe it at first.

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It seemed almost too good to be true.

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But as we kept making more models
and double and triple checking,

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it just kept holding up
that this one particular spot

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was only consistent
with being a lensed star

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I would say it is very unlikely.

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So we know from stars
in the local universe that we don't tend

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to see planets
around the most massive stars.

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This could
partially be an observation effect

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because it's harder to spot planets around
much larger, much brighter stars.

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But it's also possible
that these more massive stars

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are just too large and the light from them
is just too powerful

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to allow planets
to form Also, back in the early universe,

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the materials that you need to make up
these planets were much less abundant.

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So it would be a lot less likely

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that we could actually form a planet
at back at this early time.

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And as far as life goes,

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only 900 million years after the Big Bang
is not a whole lot of time.

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Cosmically speaking, at least to
to form anything as complicated as life.

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So I would say that it's pretty unlikely.