Using images and data from the 32 year old Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have identified the oldest star ever identified by humans, a 12.8 billion year old object that formed about 900,000 years after the Big Bang, the Associated Press reports.
“We’re seeing the star as it was about 12.8 billion years ago, which puts it about 900 million years after the Big Bang,” said astronomer Brian Welch, a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the study appearing in Wednesday’s journal Nature. “We definitely just got lucky.”
Nicknamed Earendel, the star is two billion years younger than the previous record holder, which was formed 9.4 million years ago.