Scientists who use Hubble Space Telescope Just a great find, and they gave it a totally unique name.
A team of researchers led by Brian Welch, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, announced Wednesday (March 30) that through Hubble observations, explore the farthest single star Since when. And although the technical designation of the star is WHL0137-LS, they gave it a more attractive name: Earendel.
Fans of author J.R.R. Tolkien, known for his fantasy novels including the “Lord of the Rings” and “Silmarlion” series, may already find this name familiar.
As NASA astronomer Michael Thaler confirmed to Space.com, the name is, in fact, inspired by Tolkien’s fictional writings.
This star, Thaler said, “has the wonderful name of Earndel, and that really is Tolkien’s name.”
(Thaler was not part of the discovery team, but represents four science departments at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland—Earth sciences, planetary sciences, heliophysics, and astrophysics—as the Associate Science Liaison Center Administrator.)
Related: The best Hubble Space Telescope pictures ever!
In Old English, Earendel is a personal name, but it can also mean “morning star” or “dawn.” In The Lord of the Rings, Eärendil is a half-elf character who travels the seas carrying a gem, “Silmaril”, called the Morning Star.
About the star’s name, Thaler said: “It means dawn star, which is an Old English word. Beautiful. And this has been a star, literally, since the dawn of history, the dawn of stars.” “This is the first star, the farthest we’ve ever seen, and I think Earndell is a beautiful name for her.”
“We suspect it’s not the absolute first generation of stars,” he added. “We think this could be one of the next…maybe a few tens of millions of years after star formation began. [in the universe]. “
But while this distant star, located 12.9 billion light-years from Earth, may not be an absolute first-generation star, it is the most distant star ever found, so the name seems quite apt.
“The young man who discovered the star chose the name,” Thaler added, likely referring to Welch. But while Welch’s personal interest in Tolkien grew from that name, Thaler added that she and several other staff members also admired Tolkien’s work.
In fact, while chatting with Space.com over a video call, Thaler showed off his tattoos on each arm — writing in the elven language that Tolkien devised for works like “The Silmarillion.”
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