  APOD: 2018 April 11 - Fortuitous Flash Candidate for the Farthest Star Yet
                                     Seen

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                                2018 April 11
                                      [2]
          Fortuitous Flash Candidate for the Farthest Star Yet Seen
  Image Credit: NASA [3] , ESA [4] , & P. Kelly [5] (U. Minnesota [6] ) et al.
                                      [7]

Explanation: Was this flash the farthest star yet seen? An unexpected flash of
light noticed fortuitously on Hubble Space Telescope [8]  images may prove to
be not only an unusual gravitational lensing [9]  event but also an image of a
normal star 100 times farther away than any star previously imaged
individually. The featured image [10]  shows the galaxy cluster [11] on the
left complete with many yellowish galaxies, while on the right is an expanded
square where a source appeared in 2016 that was not evident in 2011. The
spectrum [12]  and variability of this source [13]  are strangely unlike a
supernova [14] , but rather appear more consistent with a normal blue
supergiant star [15]  magnified by about a factor of 2000 by a confluence of
aligned gravitational lenses [16] . Dubbed Icarus [17] , the source is in a
galaxy [18] well behind the galaxy cluster and far across the universe -- at
redshift [19]  1.5. If the lens interpretation [20]  is correct and Icarus is
not an exploding star [21] , further observations of it and other similarly
magnified stars could give information about the stellar and dark matter [22]
content in the galaxy cluster and the universe [23] .

Open Science: Browse 1,600+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library [24]

                Tomorrow's picture: M22 and the Wanderers [25]

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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1804/FarthestStar_Hubble_2000.jpg
  [3] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [4] http://www.spacetelescope.org/
  [5] https://www.physics.umn.edu/people/plkelly.html
  [6] https://www.physics.umn.edu/
  [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0430-3
  [8] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/story/index.html
  [9] http://www.cfhtlens.org/public/what-gravitational-lensing
  [10] http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2018-13
  [11] ap180326.html
  [12] https://science.nasa.gov/ems/09_visiblelight
  [13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MACS_J1149_Lensed_Star_1
  [14] https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/supernova/en/
  [15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_supergiant_star
  [16] https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150309.html
  [17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus
  [18] ap151221.html
  [19] ap130408.html
  [20] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0430-3
  [21] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aysiMbgml5g
  [22] http://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_astro/dark_matter/
  [23] ap140512.html
  [24] http://ascl.net/code/all
  [25] ap180412.html
  [26] ap180410.html
  [27] archivepix.html
  [28] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [29] lib/aptree.html
  [30] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  [31] calendar/allyears.html
  [32] /apod.rss
  [33] lib/edlinks.html
  [34] lib/about_apod.html
  [35] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=180411
  [36] ap180412.html
  [37] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [38] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [39] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  [40] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [41] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [42] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
  [43] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  [44] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [45] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  [46] http://www.mtu.edu/
