WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:05.705 --> 00:00:06.272 We are 2 00:00:06.272 --> 00:00:10.510 so excited because the Hubble Space Telescope has actually observed 3 00:00:10.510 --> 00:00:14.881 the farthest star, individual star that we've ever seen. 4 00:00:15.348 --> 00:00:20.553 It's shining to us from nearly 13 billion light years away. 5 00:00:20.553 --> 00:00:25.425 That means its light began its trek to us nearly 13 billion years ago, 6 00:00:25.692 --> 00:00:28.395 and we're able to discern its light even now. 7 00:00:34.167 --> 00:00:36.503 Hubble was able to pick out this one 8 00:00:36.503 --> 00:00:41.174 individual star within its galaxy In an unusual way, 9 00:00:41.174 --> 00:00:45.879 it's a technique or a trick in a sense that we call gravitational lensing. 10 00:00:46.246 --> 00:00:49.449 Nature itself provides us this magnification 11 00:00:49.783 --> 00:00:54.654 When we have something very massive, in this case a cluster of galaxies 12 00:00:55.055 --> 00:00:59.793 that distorts space itself through the gravity caused by the mass 13 00:00:59.793 --> 00:01:04.497 inside the cluster, that distorted space actually acts like a lens. 14 00:01:04.531 --> 00:01:08.068 So anything behind it, that shining light that comes through it on 15 00:01:08.501 --> 00:01:10.837 its way to us gets distorted. 16 00:01:10.837 --> 00:01:15.675 The light gets stretched out into interesting arcs and things get magnified. 17 00:01:16.176 --> 00:01:21.014 We use Hubble to see magnified distant galaxies quite often. 18 00:01:21.014 --> 00:01:24.951 This gravitational lensing effect helps us to study 19 00:01:24.951 --> 00:01:27.520 very distant galaxies that get magnified. 20 00:01:28.021 --> 00:01:33.326 But we usually cannot identify individual stars in those distant galaxies. 21 00:01:33.359 --> 00:01:37.464 Usually the light from the hundreds of billions of stars gets blended together 22 00:01:38.031 --> 00:01:42.001 In this case, the alignment of that foreground cluster 23 00:01:42.001 --> 00:01:47.040 or the lens, as we call it with the background galaxy was just right. 24 00:01:47.340 --> 00:01:51.478 So that one star in the outskirts of that background galaxy 25 00:01:51.611 --> 00:01:55.615 was just in the line of sight to get magnified 26 00:01:56.049 --> 00:01:58.651 hundreds of times over its normal brightness, 27 00:01:58.985 --> 00:02:02.822 and we were able to pick it out and discern it as an individual star 28 00:02:09.062 --> 00:02:11.531 By observing and discerning 29 00:02:11.531 --> 00:02:15.001 one individual star in an extremely distant galaxy, 30 00:02:15.301 --> 00:02:16.236 we can start to learn 31 00:02:16.236 --> 00:02:20.039 what stars were like when they first began to form in the universe. 32 00:02:20.507 --> 00:02:23.376 So keep in mind that this star is in a galaxy 33 00:02:23.543 --> 00:02:27.113 that's nearly 13 billion light years away. 34 00:02:27.147 --> 00:02:31.151 That means it took nearly 13 billion years for this light to get to us. 35 00:02:31.384 --> 00:02:34.687 Our whole universe is only 13.8 billion years old. 36 00:02:34.988 --> 00:02:38.291 So this galaxy had formed early in the universe. 37 00:02:38.458 --> 00:02:40.727 Its stars are primitive. 38 00:02:41.060 --> 00:02:43.763 There hadn't been very many generations of stars 39 00:02:43.763 --> 00:02:47.300 yet coming and going in that galaxy to create the heavier 40 00:02:47.300 --> 00:02:50.303 elements that enrich stars like our sun today. 41 00:02:50.770 --> 00:02:55.241 So we expect by studying this individual star in this very distant 42 00:02:55.241 --> 00:02:59.112 early galaxy, that we'll learn what the early universe was like 43 00:02:59.379 --> 00:03:02.916 and what some of the earliest generations of stars were made of 44 00:03:08.655 --> 00:03:11.524 The Hubble Space Telescope is doing very well. 45 00:03:11.524 --> 00:03:12.759 It's powerful. 46 00:03:12.759 --> 00:03:16.596 It's as scientifically productive as ever, and we're looking forward 47 00:03:16.596 --> 00:03:20.366 to the kinds of science that Hubble will be doing in the coming years. 48 00:03:20.967 --> 00:03:24.971 We're particularly excited about the James Webb Space Telescope, 49 00:03:24.971 --> 00:03:29.042 also operating in space, along with the Hubble Space Telescope. 50 00:03:29.275 --> 00:03:32.045 By having both of these amazing facilities. 51 00:03:32.178 --> 00:03:35.048 We're going to learn more about the universe than we've ever been 52 00:03:35.048 --> 00:03:36.783 able to before. 53 00:03:36.783 --> 00:03:40.920 The Webb telescope can follow up on observations such as this one of this 54 00:03:40.920 --> 00:03:45.325 distant star with Hubble by doing follow up spectroscopy, 55 00:03:45.325 --> 00:03:48.695 sensitive infrared observations, giving us more information. 56 00:03:49.295 --> 00:03:51.664 And then in general, the Hubble telescope 57 00:03:52.065 --> 00:03:56.002 sees kinds of light that the Webb cannot see and vice versa. 58 00:03:56.035 --> 00:03:57.904 So we'll have the Webb telescope 59 00:03:57.904 --> 00:04:01.574 teaching us things that the universe reveals to us in infrared light. 60 00:04:02.008 --> 00:04:06.112 And the Hubble telescope observing invisible light and ultraviolet light. 61 00:04:06.412 --> 00:04:09.415 And together, the information from these two observatories 62 00:04:09.415 --> 00:04:13.019 is going to give us a brand new view in a richer understanding 63 00:04:13.353 --> 00:04:17.123 of everything from these distant galaxies to even stars 64 00:04:17.123 --> 00:04:20.627 and their planets in our own galaxy and even our own solar system. 65 00:04:25.598 --> 00:04:27.033 This star 66 00:04:27.033 --> 00:04:29.936 shining to us from very early in the universe 67 00:04:30.270 --> 00:04:32.939 seems to be somewhat different than our sun. 68 00:04:32.972 --> 00:04:37.477 It's bigger, maybe 50 or 100 times as massive as our sun. 69 00:04:38.311 --> 00:04:40.680 And we expect that this star's 70 00:04:40.680 --> 00:04:44.017 composition is going to be different than our sun's, 71 00:04:44.017 --> 00:04:48.421 because this star was shining very close to the beginning of the universe, 72 00:04:48.688 --> 00:04:52.325 long before we had generations of stars coming and going 73 00:04:52.325 --> 00:04:55.428 and creating heavier elements that enrich our own sun. 74 00:04:55.895 --> 00:04:59.299 This star is probably almost entirely hydrogen, 75 00:04:59.299 --> 00:05:02.468 a little helium, a smattering of other materials. 76 00:05:02.735 --> 00:05:05.738 We'll know more when we do further observations of the star 77 00:05:05.772 --> 00:05:09.409 with the James Webb Space Telescope. 78 00:05:12.712 --> 00:05:16.115 This is the farthest individual star we've ever seen. 79 00:05:16.449 --> 00:05:18.251 It's not the oldest star. 80 00:05:18.251 --> 00:05:22.088 In fact, what we're seeing in this galaxy is a very young star 81 00:05:22.388 --> 00:05:25.358 that was at its time just getting started. 82 00:05:25.625 --> 00:05:28.761 Now, this was nearly 13 billion years ago, 83 00:05:28.761 --> 00:05:31.364 because it's taken that long for the light to get to us. 84 00:05:31.564 --> 00:05:34.067 So we're not seeing that galaxy as it is today. 85 00:05:34.067 --> 00:05:37.370 We're seeing it as it was toward the beginning of the universe. 86 00:05:37.837 --> 00:05:42.308 And this star in its galaxy was a very young star at that time. 87 00:05:47.447 --> 00:05:50.783 I find it intriguing that we can see one 88 00:05:50.783 --> 00:05:55.188 individual star among hundreds of billions in a distant galaxy. 89 00:05:56.089 --> 00:05:58.257 We're used to seeing now because 90 00:05:58.257 --> 00:06:01.661 of the wonders of the Hubble Space Telescope, distant galaxies. 91 00:06:01.661 --> 00:06:07.300 And I love the rich variety of galaxies that the Hubble Space Telescope picks up. 92 00:06:07.734 --> 00:06:11.771 But these most distant galaxies have light that's pretty much blended together. 93 00:06:11.771 --> 00:06:15.575 They're so far away, we can't usually discern the individual stars. 94 00:06:16.042 --> 00:06:19.278 What's exciting to me about this is that we can actually see 95 00:06:19.512 --> 00:06:23.383 the stretched out, distorted image of the galaxy stretched out 96 00:06:23.383 --> 00:06:27.720 by the lensing effect of the foreground gravitational lensing cluster. 97 00:06:28.087 --> 00:06:30.823 But we can also pick out this individual star, 98 00:06:31.190 --> 00:06:34.260 learn about where it's perched within this galaxy. 99 00:06:34.494 --> 00:06:38.765 And hopefully, as we study it more, learn about how it was formed, 100 00:06:38.998 --> 00:06:43.803 what it's made of, and start understanding how the earliest stars in the universe 101 00:06:44.003 --> 00:06:48.474 contributed to their galaxies and to subsequent generations of stars 102 00:06:48.508 --> 00:06:49.442 like our own sun. 103 00:06:54.781 --> 00:06:57.617 The Hubble Space Telescope is doing very well. 104 00:06:57.650 --> 00:06:58.885 We're excited about that. 105 00:06:58.885 --> 00:07:00.653 It's technically sound. 106 00:07:00.653 --> 00:07:04.924 We've got a terrific crew of experts on the ground that monitor Hubble's 107 00:07:05.091 --> 00:07:06.692 health every day. 108 00:07:06.692 --> 00:07:10.296 And we are continuing a vibrant scientific program 109 00:07:10.296 --> 00:07:13.399 of observing everything from these distant galaxies and stars 110 00:07:13.766 --> 00:07:17.136 to stars and their planets in our own galaxy. 111 00:07:17.470 --> 00:07:21.107 We have plans for doing Hubble science throughout this decade. 112 00:07:21.340 --> 00:07:25.111 And we're particularly excited as to how Hubble will complement 113 00:07:25.111 --> 00:07:27.180 the new James Webb Space Telescope. 114 00:07:27.180 --> 00:07:30.583 They have different capabilities that will complement each other as we're 115 00:07:30.583 --> 00:07:34.787 studying everything from our solar system to the distant universe. 116 00:07:40.693 --> 00:07:41.828 I'm very excited 117 00:07:41.828 --> 00:07:46.499 about this combination of Webb and Hubble for looking at things 118 00:07:46.499 --> 00:07:51.137 like how galaxies have changed over the billion year history of the universe. 119 00:07:51.671 --> 00:07:55.441 The Hubble telescope can show us how vigorous star formation 120 00:07:55.441 --> 00:08:00.379 is going on in regions and galaxies close to us, and even at intermediate 121 00:08:00.379 --> 00:08:03.716 distances between us and the very early universe. 122 00:08:04.116 --> 00:08:08.387 The Webb can peer farther back into space and time 123 00:08:08.654 --> 00:08:13.226 and show us what the first proto galaxies, infant galaxies were like as 124 00:08:13.226 --> 00:08:16.996 they were beginning to form with Hubble and Webb together, we can see 125 00:08:16.996 --> 00:08:23.002 this whole kind of generational picture of early galaxies and later galaxies. 126 00:08:23.169 --> 00:08:26.772 And they tell us something about how the universe has changed over time 127 00:08:27.073 --> 00:08:29.876 and how galaxies have even become more habitable 128 00:08:30.176 --> 00:08:33.813 to planets and even life on at least one planet.