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Published November 20, 2022 | Version public
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JWST Imaging of Earendel, the Extremely Magnified Star at Redshift z = 6.2

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Abstract

The gravitationally lensed star WHL 0137–LS, nicknamed Earendel, was identified with a photometric redshift z_phot = 6.2 ± 0.1 based on images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. Here we present James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Near Infrared Camera images of Earendel in eight filters spanning 0.8–5.0 μm. In these higher-resolution images, Earendel remains a single unresolved point source on the lensing critical curve, increasing the lower limit on the lensing magnification to μ > 4000 and restricting the source plane radius further to r T_(eff) ≃ 13,000–16,000 K, assuming the light is dominated by a single star. The delensed bolometric luminosity in this case ranges from log(L) = 5.8 to 6.6 L_⊙, which is in the range where one expects luminous blue variable stars. Follow-up observations, including JWST NIRSpec scheduled for late 2022, are needed to further unravel the nature of this object, which presents a unique opportunity to study massive stars in the first billion years of the universe.

Additional Information

This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The data were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127 for JWST. These observations are associated with program JWST GO 2282. E.Z. acknowledges support from the Swedish National Space Board. M.B. acknowledges support from the Slovenian national research agency ARRS through grant N1-0238. A.Z. acknowledges support by grant No. 2020750 from the United States–Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) and grant No. 2109066 from the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) and by the Ministry of Science & Technology, Israel. M.T. acknowledges support by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) through project No. CE170100013. The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation under grant No. 140. J.M.D. acknowledges the support of projects PGC2018-101814-B-100 and MDM-2017-0765. Y.J.-T. acknowledges financial support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 898633, the MSCA IF Extensions Program of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), and the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa award to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709). P.A.O. acknowledges support by the Swiss National Science Foundation through project grant 200020_207349.

Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
118257
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20221206-901635600.8

Related works

Describes
10.17909/2x4w-pd04 (DOI)

Funding

NASA
NAS 5-03127
NASA
JWST-GO-02282.007
Swedish National Space Board (SNSB)
Slovenian Research Agency
N1-0238
Binational Science Foundation (USA-Israel)
2020750
NSF
AST-2109066
Ministry of Science and Technology (Israel)
Australian Research Council
CE170100013
Danish National Research Foundation
140
Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MICIU)
PGC2018-101814-B-100
Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu
MDM-2017-0765
Marie Curie Fellowship
898633
Severo Ochoa
SEV-2017-0709
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
200020_207349

Dates

Created
2023-01-06
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2023-03-16
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

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Caltech groups
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)