'Dragon Galaxy': NASA's James Webb Telescope discovers 44 stars situated 6.5 billion light-years-away
Produced by Tarun Mishra
Produced by Tarun Mishra
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has identified 44 individual stars in a galaxy located halfway across the observable universe, an achievement once thought impossible by astronomers.
The discovery was made possible by the gravitational lensing effect of the Abell 370 galaxy cluster, which magnified and distorted the light from a background galaxy nicknamed the Dragon.
Light from the Dragon's home galaxy began its journey around 6.5 billion years ago when the universe was roughly half its current age.
The stars identified are red supergiants in the final stages of their evolution, similar to Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion.
The Dragon is a result of cosmic mirages, with multiple images of the same spiral galaxy being warped and stretched by the gravitational field of Abell 370.
Variations in the gravitational lensing landscape caused the brightness of the stars to fluctuate, making them appear and disappear in images taken a year apart, akin to a twinkling effect.
Details of the findings were published on January 6 in the journal Nature Astronomy.
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