The team behind the find say the light was emitted from the star – dubbed Icarus but officially named MACS J1149+2223 Lensed Star 1 – when it was more than 9bn light years from Earth. Icarus is now much further away but will have died, forming either a black hole or a neutron star. “It’s more than 100 times farther away than the next most distant individual star we can observe,” said Kelly. The increase in brightness of Icarus, the researchers say, is due to an additional magnification boost from a star within the galaxy cluster. If that were the case, these objects within the cluster galaxy would be also be expected to boost the brightness of Icarus.

Source: The Guardian April 02, 2018 15:00 UTC