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 ↓ ↓ ↓

Sixty Symbols videos by Brady Haran

[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.

[jnsdroid]

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

[Dellvmnyam]

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

[kakae]

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.

[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?? 🤔

[Renan]

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

[davidgustavsson]

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.

[highseassailor]

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

[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 4 Red = Past Certainty...."Completeness Of The Time Tick In The Classical World We Know"....Purple = Infinity..Take Care...Bye....

[kimsland]

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.

[matwyder]

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.

[markusjacobi-piepenbrink]

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

[LocomotiveThought]

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

[Daehawk]

And that star has probably long ago burnt out and is no more yet we can still see its light headed towards us due to how long it takes to get here. EDIT: oh you mentioned it later in the video.

[the_eternal_student]

Astronomy is boring when you ask what is there, but interesting when you ask what can we do about it.

[muzikhed]

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

[Orion]

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

[philtravis]

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