Cosmic Lens Helps Hubble Capture Image of Most Distant Star Ever Seen
BERKELEY, Calif., April 3, 2018 — Gravitational lensing — the bending of light by massive galaxy clusters in the line of sight — has occurred during a rare cosmic alignment, magnifying a star more than 2,000 times. The phenomenon allowed astronomers to capture an image of a star some 9 billion light years from Earth. The discovery of the star, often referred to as Icarus rather than by its formal name, MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1 (LS1), kicks off a new technique for astronomers to study individual stars in