A Serendipitous Star (and most distant star) - Sixty Symbols

Dr Emma Chapman discusses Earendel (WHL0137-LS) - a distant star discovered by sheer luck, More links and info below ↓ ↓ ↓
Dr Emma Chapman: dr-emma-chapman.com
First Light by Dr Chapman (Amazon link): amzn.to/41RH7Ec
The University of Nottingham physics and astronomy: bit.ly/NottsPhysics
Deep Sky Videos: / deepskyvideos
JWST Imaging of Earendel, the Extremely Magnified Star at Redshift z = 6.2 - ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/202...
Patreon: / sixtysymbols
Sixty Symbols videos by Brady Haran
www.bradyharanblog.com
Email list: eepurl.com/YdjL9

[@sixtysymbols]

First Light by Dr Chapman (Amazon link): amzn.to/41RH7Ec The University of Nottingham physics and astronomy: bit.ly/NottsPhysics Deep Sky Videos: kzbin.info

[@cerealpeer]

ive got another closed, flat system... its a black box infinite spreadsheet chain of thought. it sets its own parameters and metrics to develop functionalities in an internal environment evolutionarily. when you take an instantaneous measurement of the system, it appears to be ordering itself... i find that interesting.

[@cyrilio]

Dr Emma is awesome. Would love to see her more often on Sixty Symbols!

[@scowell]

The star was nicknamed Earendel by the discoverers, derived from the Old English name for 'morning star' or 'rising light'.[1][10] Eärendil is also the name of a half-elven character in one of J. R. R. Tolkien's books, The Silmarillion, who travelled through the sky with a radiant jewel that appeared as bright as a star. NASA astronomer Michelle Thaller confirmed that the reference to Tolkien was intentional.

[@ANunes06]

A bit farther back and it comes from Norse Mythology. "Aurvandil" is a character who Thor got into it with and ends up throwing his toe so high into the air that it became a new star. Kind of an ironic choice in that regard, but its a really pretty name.

[@gerryjamesedwards1227]

Thanks, I wondered about that!

[@102Renan]

Dr Emma has a captivating energy, would love to see her more often.

[@dziban303]

bro's thirsty

[@BeCurieUs]

Agree!

[@Dellvmnyam]

When she said "That's the pain of astronomy" I felt it.

[@davidgustavsson4000]

About anthropomorphizing stars, i think every field does this. I'm a physicist, and it makes it much easier to discuss some things if you ascribe a will to, for instance, electrons.

[@jackthompson6296]

Sloppy.

[@markusjacobi-piepenbrink9795]

So much passion and joy in and for stars! Wonderful!

[@iambiggus]

Great interview

[@muzikhed]

Amazing. What a wonderful, fun study ! Great chat, Sixty Symbols does it again !

[@JuliusUnique]

3:00 1. the international units is km/h and 2. it's around 950km/h

[@m802001]

JWST is killing it!

[@everyoneisodd]

"Humans are.. you know.. nothing and insignificant" Lovely!!

[@warot359]

Whoever thinks that begs their opinions be immediately discarded as nothing and insignificant. Why even watch the video? To reafirm it's nothingness?

[@swagatsauravmishra5266]

Super-interesting stuff from Emma and Brady

[@highseassailor]

1st here for astro-nerding, stayed for the Dr. ❤Wow❤ Stunningly brilliant, some star!

[@MongoosePreservationSociety]

This is great

[@Olhado256]

Dr Chapman is so cool!

[@AnimusInvidious]

Fascinating / cool.

[@jnsdroid]

For anyone wondering, the average speed of an ̶a̶i̶r̶ ̶l̶a̶d̶e̶n̶ ̶s̶w̶a̶l̶l̶o̶w̶ cruising speed passenger plane is 575-600 mph

[@iagocasabiellgonzalez7807]

12:30 My thoughts exactly on astronomical naming conventions

[@matwyder4187]

The problem with Earth emissions being lensed by the Sun is that as we orbit, it sweeps around a massive circle over the year, so if you are far enough for it to matter, you simply can't go fast enough to get a stable signal. I mean, a problem from the point of detecting it, I just remember the storyline of Sagan's Contact, perhaps it's not at all a problem... As unlikely as it is, if someone ever catches any of it, it'll be nothing more but a short blip, something like their version of our "Wow!" signal.

[@NT_1]

watch the movie shushine 2007

[@simbelmyne444]

The Light of Earendil

[@tarmaque]

Tolkien would be proud.

[@kakae4439]

came for Tolkien lore, stayed for science

[@saturdaysequalsyouth]

Propeller planes are about 300 mi/hr. Jets are about 2-3x faster. Rockets are about 50x faster.

[@mrln247]

Isn't it "going to stat put" since at these distances things become time dilated so even if it was moving we will never be able to see it, since it's kind of frozen in time. General Relativity being as it is.

[@user-ul6dc4qc4j]

The most distant, observable star that JWST can see...

[@kimsland999]

Astronomy goes into size, distance, composition etc etc etc of stars, planets, Moons, galaxies of course. I'm more interested in Cosmology. Origins, background radiation, the universe! etc.

[@maf654321]

Eärandil was a mariner…

[@skuzzbunny]

exciting researcher, book ordered!!

[@gutekfiutek]

Spaceporn Cornwall? Awesome!

[@lethargogpeterson4083]

I think it is SpaceporT Cornwall, with a T, lol.

[@EebstertheGreat]

Earendel is 28 billion light years away (comoving distance). I feel like it's confusing to call it 13 billion light years and not explain the difference, since you end up with different sources quoting different figures.

[@TheRealSkeletor]

Earendel is long since exploded and no longer exists, not 28 billion light years away nor anywhere else. The light we see coming from where Earendel was 13 billion years ago, is coming from 13 billion light years away.

[@EebstertheGreat]

@@TheRealSkeletor Sure, but the place the light came from is 28 billion light years away. The way it's phrased in the video makes it sound like it's closer than the "sparkler" globular clusters found by JWST, but that isn't so.

[@TheRealSkeletor]

@@EebstertheGreatNo, it's 13 billion light years away. It would take longer than the current age of the universe for light to reach us from 28 billion light years away.

[@kishorrajmohan3540]

@@TheRealSkeletor It's known as the co-moving distance. The light from the star was released 13 billion years ago and is reaching us now, but within that 13 billion years of time, the space between us and the star has expanded, due to the expansion of the universe (as Einstein's general relativity predicts). So, in reality, the light source has moved back to 28 billion light years away, while the light is reaching us from the time it released it (when it was 13 billion light years away)

[@TheRealSkeletor]

@@kishorrajmohan3540 The light isn't coming from that source 28 billion light years away though. It's coming from 13 billion light years away, where that source was 13 billion years ago, when that light we are now detecting was released.

[@ImmortalDuke]

Keep on looking

[@kwanarchive]

For some reason, I never cottoned on to the fact that the first stars haven't been observed.

[@elkikex]

3 things 1. Awesome first question! I feel even Earths 6 month movement would cause some visual changes at such magnification. 2. Never explained HOW we know it's a single star. Spectrography I presume, but a comparison of a star vs a galaxy's spectrum would've been great. 3. What's up with the video segment names?? 🤔

[@garethdean6382]

Yeah, the spectroscopy thing could be a whole video, a single black-body spectrum vs the much more complex sum of spectra you get from all the stars in a galaxy. The amount of information you can get out of both is astounding.

[@nightjarflying]

Spectral energy distribution suggests it's a single star or a binary - more observations will pin it down

[@DiscordiaDD]

A haunting end there...

[@mannys9130]

I can't wait until JWST or future Extremely Large Telescopes show us the first image or spectral data from a Population 3 star, but especially a quasistar. 🤓 That will be some very ancient light, but it's out there! Observing a quasistar will definitely solve the Supermassive Black Hole genesis problem and I believe 100% in the hypothesis. It is the best model to describe the extremely rapid formation of SMBHs and Ultra Massive Black Holes like TON 618 which couldn't have formed via mergers alone.

[@grhinson]

Sometimes an outsider question can being new insight...2:01

[@edibleapeman2]

Given the size and scale of the universe, isn’t it possible (or even inevitable) that every star gets lensed like this somewhere, sometime?

[@kwanarchive]

Yes, but our telescopes don't have wide field of view compared to the entire observable sphere (and these telescopes have a very limited lifetime), so it's still highly unlikely and lucky that we would spot one.

[@mimetype]

Is it further than Bradford?

[@garethdean6382]

I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

[@mimetype]

@@garethdean6382 Who buys peanuts for space at a chemist? You could probably get some at ASDA and that's REALLY far away, any way astronauts eat protein pills.

[@philtravis2093]

How was it determined to be a single star rather than a star cluster?

[@nightjarflying]

Spectral energy distribution suggests it's a single star or a binary - more observations will pin it down

[@edwardp7725]

I really hope this was named as a LOTR reference.

[@beticocr1234]

Yes, it was.

[@garethdean6382]

It absolutely was, PBS Spacetime recently did a video on this subject noting the connection. Not an unusual one for astronomers to make, lot of Tolkien fans among them.

[@thstroyur]

Yesn't; looking up my _Silmarillion,_ it's spelled _Eärendil._ What probably happened is that Tolkien, being the philology buff he was, was acquainted with Anglo-Saxon and Old English in general, and based large chunks of quenya and sindarin on it (specially in his early writings - anybody remembers Ælfwine the Mariner?) - but the people who discovered the star may not have known that, and simply used an old-timey term for "morning star". TL,DR: it could be just a coincidence between two philology nerds.

[@marcognudi664]

'Earendil' a name derived from Tolkien. Elrond's father

[@Slithy]

which by itself was likely derived from old english by Tolkien, who was a professor of english language and literature

[@RFC3514]

It's not "derived from Tolkien". Tokien also got "Eärendil" from Old English. Except the real meaning is / was "rising light", and Tolkien borrowed it into Quenya (his made-up language) to mean "Lover of the Sea".

[@cerealpeer]

its also a very old mythological figure in anglo saxon culture... could be a coincidence, or unintentional consequence of culture. then again, it could be quite intentional on tolkiens part which wouldnt be surprising. here its spelled closer to the way it was more than a thousand years ago- earendel.

[@Cosper79]

​@@RFC3514per Wikipedia, the reference to Tolkien was intentional.

[@RFC3514]

@@cerealpeer - Tolkien originally named his character Eärendel, and then changed it to Eärendil, either because he thought it sounded more elvish or to avoid confusion with the Old English meaning.

[@guyh3403]

What I find hard to understand is that near Earendel there are a gazillion red spots, two or one pixels large representing complete galaxy's...

[@michaelstiller2282]

At least with the JWST. The images go though a photoshop like program, that uses an algorithm to remove, what they hope, is only noise in the data. Things like 1 pixel anomalies. Get blurred or their characteristics flattened out or even replace. Like a bight 1 pixel thing. Or anomalies due to the telescope being made of separate mirrors, which creates noticeable ghostly geometry in the images.

[@nightjarflying]

Spectroscope can tell the difference - the energy distribution of the light

[@jansenart0]

I've got an astrophysical (xenopological) question: wouldn't the region around Sagittarius A* naturally be the premier location in the galaxy for spacefaring interstellar species to congregate? Decelerating to arrive there naturally would require massive energy, but still, it seems like every alien race would treat it as a rally point.

[@garethdean6382]

For what specific reasons? It can be tricky to find a logical chain that *all* spacefaring life must follow.

[@NT_1]

I highly recommend people to watch the movie Sunshine 2007!

[@LowtechLLC]

Is it possible that light from the sun or radio from earth bends around multiple stars or galaxies and can make a 180 degree turn? If yes, could we see our own past? Here's another crazy idea, could we create a cluster of small satellites, put them at Jupiter's L1 point, use the sun as a gravitational lens, and the cluster of satellites as a computational lens/moire lens to reach/see the furthest stars? Just thinking outside the box.

[@SauloMansur]

1 - It is indeed possible to find a "reflection" of our past, but just extremelly hard. Maybe some day we find it, but things must be perfectly aligned over massive distances, so not an easy task xD 2 - This is in fact an ongoing project for the near future, still in it's early phases. But the focal distance for the gravitational lens of the sun is a bit farther away (iirc about 550-600 au. away). It's not an easy task, but possible.

[@TheRealSkeletor]

Possible, yes, but in order for it to be lensed to that degree, our light would have to loop around a few other galaxies first, meaning when it eventually makes it back to own own galaxy, it will be millions of years in the future, at the very least.

[@dmg4415]

If I remember correctly, there is a novel about that subject, they could see much about early 60s just until Dallas 1963, then I went out, just before the Kennedy assaination. It must be late 70s or just early 80s.

[@keksmlg]

✨✨

[@KiloOscarZulu]

Gravitational lensing of our signals via the Sun by aliens is one of the plot points of The Three Body Problem novels.

[@oblivion_2852]

Not quite. Gravitational lensing wasn't used. Resonance of different density plasma within the sun was. Basically making the sun ring like a bell

[@webchimp]

If Toyah had gone into astronomy rather than music.

[@Corvaire]

Indeed, if intelligent life (in our current focal of time) was watching us via a solar lensing, they would probably watching Galaxy Quest. ;O)-

[@appa609]

Vingilot!

[@chucktx5957]

Lensing Earth using our Sun: How far away from Earth is the focal point?

[@deathsheadknight2137]

light would not spend enough time traveling perpendicular to the sun, needs to be more gravity, over a wider area, over a much longer amount of time.

[@Orion6479]

Could gamma rays be magnified and concentrated towards us and pose a threat? Sounds like a death star 😂

[@nitez1530]

Yep, quasars

[@deathsheadknight2137]

That would be very, very unlucky, but if you think about it there is a chance that somewhere in the universe there is a supercluster-focused gamma ray beam sweeping across the cosmos.

[@miroslavhoudek7085]

I feel sorry for all the airliner captains who provide muffled airspeed to passangers and obviously not even the phds with curious brains are paying attention.

[@davecrupel2817]

13 billion lightyears.... Holy Mother of God...

[@AlphaFoxDelta]

🌟 ⏳️ 🔭

[@TheRealSkeletor]

The problem with the idea of some other distant civilization using our sun as a gravitational lens to pick up signals from Earth is that, due to our orbit around the sun, they'd only be able to pick up a signal from Earth one day of the year. It's much more interesting (for me) to think about using other, more distant but larger stars in our own galaxy for lensing, since the relative position of solar systems behind it wouldn't be moving on nearly the same timescales.

[@Urgleflogue]

Sun is not that big, SGL will start to focus at about 550 AU, so not that far away. And they'll have a lot of deconvolution to do :)

[@ronstoppable1133]

Gotta love that name. Conjures images of an Elf-man with a bright glowing gem, sailing through the loneliness of space 😁

[@hayatojp1249]

isnt it a galaxy not star isnt a single star too faint to be detected

[@quinto3969]

Hey sixty symbols, what are we missing out from Maxwell's need to annotate with quaternions? Did we lose signal through Heaviside's compression of the equations. Did Maxwell not have access to Heaviside's method, or did he choose quaternions because of some kind of esoteric sense he, Maxwell, was trying to convey?

[@RobertLeitz]

"Euclid's Cat"..Here are the basics for the speed of light colors..B & W Are E.P.R. Same Line Instant..Universe Started Black "Lost Time"....There is no green or orange..Only Yellow on top of blue...Or Yellow on top of red..Euclid compared to Schrodinger's Cat...Postulate 5 = Blue = Future Uncertainty.."Universe Start"..."Lost Time"...Postulate 1 "Green Door In"...Postulate 2 "YELLOW"...It is On TOP..Joining 1 + 3 Together....Postulate 3 "Orange Door Out".....Postulate 4 Red = Past Certainty...."Completeness Of The Time Tick In The Classical World We Know"....Purple = Infinity..Take Care...Bye....

[@AlanW]

Would it be at all interesting to take these smeared images and transforming them into the how the original looked?

[@deathsheadknight2137]

you'd have to know how its being warped by foreground interference before you'd know how to undo the warping.

[@AlanW]

@@deathsheadknight2137Ah, I didn't think about that the gravitational object wouldn't be uniform.

[@vaderdudenator1]

Ooh, who’s the new presenter?

[@dhavalbhalara7261]

Thank you. Two things I learned from this video 1) Humans and human life span is insignificant 2) scientists should start experiments by throwing dust and metals in fusion reactor instead of using pure deuterium and tritium plasma...may be electron cloud repulsion of dust brings two nucleus closer faster ( because almost all starts in our galaxy has metals in them)

[@LowtechLLC]

Thumbs up because of "I could open the tomb of spacetime "

[@Whargoul1942]

Queue VNV Nation

[@warot359]

Wow, look at that wall.

[@Vladimir-hq1ne]

Actually, an "observation" fact here is a bit more ojected than proven...

[@MrCharlesdick]

I would love to see an extensive survey done of gravitationally lensed distant galaxies.

[@S1nwar]

its amazing that by lucky chance the universe offers a lense with a diameter and focal lenght of several million lightyears. and this isnt even the perfect case of a circle, its just a smeared arc. there have to be some insanely perfect examples at some locations in the universe

[@stoatystoat174]

:)

[@JungleJargon]

The speed of light is not constant since the measures of time and distance are not constant. The changes in time and distance because of gravity compound the changes in the speed of light. Objects in space are also not as far away as they seem to be because of the expanded distance from the diminished gravity between gravitational forces.

[@pettread]

Dude over-uses "preshoooomably". Every second sentence. Does my head in.

[@wadilsono]

por que não configurou o idioma e permitiu legendas? pfff

[@smergthedargon8974]

1:55 bwviter

[@quentinruggles5494]

Female George Russell?

[@IakobusAtreides]

Humans are insignificant?

[@garethdean6382]

On big enough scales, yes. As to us there are mites crawling around we give no thought.

[@fep_ptcp883]

Astronomically speaking, definitely

[@deathsheadknight2137]

@@TheDredConspiracy if we found intelligent extraterrestrial life, would you consider them insignificant?

[@deathsheadknight2137]

@@TheDredConspiracy You're missing the point. Is there some arbitrary numerical or technological threshold at which organisms become "significant?" who decides that? if a thousand civilizations exist in the galaxy right now does that make us insignificant? What if 999 civilizations have existed in the milky way but never simultaneously, with us being the thousandth one? What if ours is the *only* civilization in the universe at present? we have no way to test any of these so it comes down to: if you cant consider yourself significant why would you consider any life significant at all? If I were an alien i would not wish to meet another group with such a disregard for the significance of intelligent life. You'd better hope that if they do exist they don't share your sentiment.

[@lenmetallica]

​@@deathsheadknight2137I think their points were very clear but you clearly keep conflating the obvious and apparent insignificance of us when compared on a universal scale, to their personal beliefs on what life means to them. Just because they acknowledge that we are insignificant on certain scales, doesn't mean that they don't have significance towards life.

[@Ian.Murray]

Had to watch this one on mute with the captions on. The vocal fry is unbearable.

[@cptrikester2671]

Taken with a grain of salt, almost anything can be accepted.

[@JungleJargon]

There is so much wrong in astrophysics and cosmology. It’s almost entirely based on assumptions, assumptions of dark matter assumptions of dark energy assumptions of a universe expanding from nothing into oblivion for no reason assumptions of a single age of the universe and the assumption that everything just appeared from nothing like magic. Redshift is from the accumulation of gravity between us and distant galaxies. It’s from a light source from a greater mass and passing through areas of mass and gravity causing redshift. Distant galaxies are more redshifted because of the greater amount of mass that the light has to pass by. The vacuum energy is from black holes absorbing space time, not from imaginary inflatons. Dark energy is assumed because the correct differing measures of distance and time that also compound the change in lightspeed are not being taken into account. Vacuum is the opposite of inflation. Matter and energy cannot make or direct themselves and they are only going from order to disorder disproving the idea that they made and directed themselves. The problem is that cosmologists are not considering the actual evidence in front of them. The evidence is one giant elephant 🐘 in the room that the (secular) scientists try their hardest to ignore and pretend that the elephant 🐘 isn’t there when the elephant 🐘 of actual physics is there. The speed of light is NOT constant because the measurements of time and distance are NOT constant throughout the universe. The light from distant galaxies only slows down when it encounters the mass inside of a galaxy according to general relativity which is an observed fact. There’s no excuse for scientists to be making up their own version of physics.

[@droppedpasta]

I’m sure the Nobel committee is waiting with bated breath for your paradigm-shaking research to be completed

[@JungleJargon]

@@droppedpasta They will ignore me as long as possible. You were unable to address anything in the post.

[@droppedpasta]

@@JungleJargon unwilling ≠ unable

[@JungleJargon]

@@droppedpasta You couldn’t get yourself to address anything.

[@minimalisttraveler9337]

To be fair I've always thought this also. Redshift is caused by the stretching of the wavelength of light over the shear cosmological distances is has to travel. Further it travels more it's stretched. Just because we don't observe this locally it doesn't mean that light loses small amounts of energy over massive cosmologicalb distances.

[@calholli]

I'd love to know how she comes up with all of this by 9 little pixels of faded blurry light. It sure feels like bigfoot footage to me. It's funny how we get all the story telling about it, but no science behind the claims. She's not here to teach us how she knows these things... just trust me bro" vibes. How do we know it's a star at all and not just a huge collision?

[@sixtysymbols]

There’s a link to the paper in the video description.

[@droppedpasta]

The only person stopping you from taking classes and learning these things is you

[@otterwesen]

It's in the spectra..

[@nightjarflying]

Don't be silly calholli - you are anti-scientist & you don't know how to interpret evidence, so why are you even asking the question? Stick to your guns & car plows - stuff you can understand.