MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1, also known as Icarus, is a blue supergiantstar observed through a gravitational lens that might be 193.4 times the radius of the Sun. It is the second most distant individual star to have been detected so far (second only to WHL0137-LS, also known as Earendel, as of March 2022), at about 14 billion light-years from Earth (redshift z=1.49; comoving distance of 14.4 billion light-years; Cosmic time of 9.34 billion years).[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Light from the star was emitted 4.4 billion years after the Big Bang.[8] 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.[9][10]
Detection of MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1 A galactic cluster (left) magnified a distant star (now named Icarus) more than 2,000 times, making it visible in 2016 from Earth (lower right), 9.34 billion light-years away—although visible in 2016, the star was not visible in 2011 (upper right).
