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Mothra, or EMO J041608.838-240358.60, is a binary system with a possible transient[ clarification needed ], in the constellation of Eridanus. Mothra is in the galaxy cluster MACS J0416.1-2403, nicknamed the "Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster". [1]
Mothra is one of the most distant known stars; it is 5.4 gigaparsecs (17.6 billion light years) away. They had to magnify to a factor of 4,000 to find EMO J041608.838-240358.60. EMO stands for extremely magnified object. LS1 is the host galaxy of the EMO J041608.838-240358.60 system, a dwarf galaxy or globular cluster with a mass of 10,000-1,000,000 solar masses. [2]
Mothra consists of two supergiant stars, a yellow supergiant and a blue supergiant. Mothra A is a yellow supergiant or yellow hypergiant. It has a size of 271 solar radii, based on a luminosity of 50,000 solar luminosities and a temperature of 5,250 kelvin. Mothra A has an initial mass of 15 solar masses. Mothra B is the blue supergiant. It has an size of 95.5 solar radii based on a luminosity of 125,000 solar luminosities and a temperature of 14,000 kelvin. The orbital characteristics of the binary system is currently unknown. Mothra A had a possible transient event, for 120-230 days it swelled up to 3,000 solar radii, and cooled down to 4,000 kelvin. [2] [3]
A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek galaxias (γαλαξίας), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. Galaxies, averaging an estimated 100 million stars, range in size from dwarfs with less than a thousand stars, to the largest galaxies known – supergiants with one hundred trillion stars, each orbiting its galaxy's center of mass. Most of the mass in a typical galaxy is in the form of dark matter, with only a few percent of that mass visible in the form of stars and nebulae. Supermassive black holes are a common feature at the centres of galaxies.
A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by self-gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night; their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed points of light. The most prominent stars have been categorised into constellations and asterisms, and many of the brightest stars have proper names. Astronomers have assembled star catalogues that identify the known stars and provide standardized stellar designations. The observable universe contains an estimated 1022 to 1024 stars. Only about 4,000 of these stars are visible to the naked eye—all within the Milky Way galaxy.
A galaxy cluster, or a cluster of galaxies, is a structure that consists of anywhere from hundreds to thousands of galaxies that are bound together by gravity, with typical masses ranging from 1014 to 1015 solar masses. They are the second-largest known gravitationally bound structures in the universe after some superclusters (of which only one, the Shapley Supercluster, is known to be bound). They were believed to be the largest known structures in the universe until the 1980s, when superclusters were discovered. One of the key features of clusters is the intracluster medium (ICM). The ICM consists of heated gas between the galaxies and has a peak temperature between 2–15 keV that is dependent on the total mass of the cluster. Galaxy clusters should not be confused with galactic clusters (also known as open clusters), which are star clusters within galaxies, or with globular clusters, which typically orbit galaxies. Small aggregates of galaxies are referred to as galaxy groups rather than clusters of galaxies. The galaxy groups and clusters can themselves cluster together to form superclusters.
X-ray binaries are a class of binary stars that are luminous in X-rays. The X-rays are produced by matter falling from one component, called the donor, to the other component, called the accretor, which is either a neutron star or black hole. The infalling matter releases gravitational potential energy, up to 30 percent of its rest mass, as X-rays. The lifetime and the mass-transfer rate in an X-ray binary depends on the evolutionary status of the donor star, the mass ratio between the stellar components, and their orbital separation.
Cepheus is a constellation in the deep northern sky, named after Cepheus, a king of Aethiopia in Greek mythology. It is one of the 48 constellations listed by the second century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 constellations in the modern times.
The cosmic distance ladder is the succession of methods by which astronomers determine the distances to celestial objects. A direct distance measurement of an astronomical object is possible only for those objects that are "close enough" to Earth. The techniques for determining distances to more distant objects are all based on various measured correlations between methods that work at close distances and methods that work at larger distances. Several methods rely on a standard candle, which is an astronomical object that has a known luminosity.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to astronomy:
Astrophysical X-ray sources are astronomical objects with physical properties which result in the emission of X-rays.
MACS0647-JD is a galaxy with a redshift of about z = 10.7, equivalent to a light travel distance of 13.26 billion light-years. If the distance estimate is correct, it formed about 427 million years after the Big Bang.
MACS J0647.7+7015 is a galaxy cluster with a redshift z = 0.592, located at J2000.0 right ascension 06h 47m 42s declination +70° 15′. It lies between the Big Dipper and Little Dipper in the constellation Camelopardalis. It is part of a sample of 12 extreme galaxy clusters at z > 0.5 discovered by the MAssive Cluster Survey (MACS).
MACS J0416.1-2403 or MACS0416 abbreviated, is a cluster of galaxies at a redshift of z=0.397 with a mass 160 trillion times the mass of the Sun inside 200 kpc (650 kly). Its mass extends out to a radius of 950 kpc (3,100 kly) and was measured as 1.15 × 1015 solar masses. The system was discovered in images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope during the Massive Cluster Survey, MACS. This cluster causes gravitational lensing of distant galaxies producing multiple images. Based on the distribution of the multiple image copies, scientists have been able to deduce and map the distribution of dark matter. The images, released in 2014, were used in the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH) to help scientists peer back in time at the early Universe and to discover the distribution of dark matter.
MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1, also known as Icarus, is a blue supergiant star observed through a gravitational lens. It is the seventh most distant individual star to have been detected so far, at approximately 14 billion light-years from Earth. Light from the star was emitted 4.4 billion years after the Big Bang. According to co-discoverer Patrick Kelly, the star is at least a hundred times more distant than the next-farthest non-supernova star observed, SDSS J1229+1122, and is the first magnified individual star seen.
Stephenson 2 DFK 49 or St2-11 is a putative post red supergiant star in the constellation Scutum, in the massive open cluster Stephenson 2. It is possibly one of the largest known stars with a radius estimated to be between 1,074 solar radii to 1,300 solar radii, corresponding to volumes of 1.2 and 2.2 times that of the Sun respectively. If it was placed at the center of the Solar System, its photosphere would potentially approach or engulf Jupiter's orbit. It loses mass at a very high rate, resulting in large amounts of infrared excess.
WHL0137-LS, also known as Earendel, is a star located in the constellation of Cetus. Discovered in 2022 by the Hubble Space Telescope, it is the earliest and most distant known star, at a comoving distance of 28 billion light-years. The previous farthest known star, MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1, also known as Icarus, at a comoving distance of 14.4 billion light-years, was discovered by Hubble in 2018. Stars like Earendel can be observed at cosmological distances thanks to the large magnification factors afforded by gravitational lensing, which can exceed 1,000. Other stars have been observed through this technique, such as Godzilla.
Webb's First Deep Field is the first operational image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The deep-field photograph, which covers a tiny area of sky visible from the Southern Hemisphere, is centered on SMACS 0723, a galaxy cluster in the constellation of Volans. Thousands of galaxies are visible in the image, some as old as 13 billion years. It is the highest-resolution image of the early universe ever taken. Captured by the telescope's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), the image was revealed to the public by NASA on 11 July 2022.
Godzilla is a variable star in the Sunburst galaxy at redshift z = 2.37, observed through the gravitational lens PSZ1 G311.65-18.48. It was originally identified in the NW arc as a possible transient event in images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
SN H0pe (pronounced: Supernova Hope) is a Type Ia supernova discovered in 2023, at a redshift of z=1.78. It is a supernova discovered in a gravitationally lensed subject system, being itself a triply lensed object. Its name, H0pe, comes from its proposed utility in determination of the Hubble Constant (H0) that would allow determination of H0 in the distant universe and compare it with local determinations; and hopefully resolve Hubble tension, the difference in such determinations with local Type Ia supernovae and those based on the very distant Cosmic Microwave Background. The supernova exploded when the universe was 3.5 billion years old, rather than at today's date of 13.8 billion years old. The supernova progenitor was a white dwarf star, the progenitor of all Type Ia supernovae. The gravitational lens is galaxy cluster PLCK G165.7+67.0 (at a redshift of z=0.35), which lensed the supernova and its host galaxy.