Astronomers have spotted the farthest star known to date: Earendel. The light travel distance to this star is 12.9 billion light years, and the proper distance is 28 billion light years.
Earendel was discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope using a technique called gravitational lensing. First, Hubble observed the star’s parent galaxy named Sunrise Arc. Then, a bright object was sitting on the edge of the lensed galaxy. Studies proved that it’s the most distant single star ever recorded.