--- title: Hubble Space Telescope Finds Icarus, Most Distant Star Seen description: Scientists used the Hubble Space Telescope for a stunning observation: Icarus, the most distant star ever seen at 9 billion light years away canonical: https://time.com/5227443/hubble-telescope-icarus-star/ author: Aric Jenkins article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-04-04T12:27:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:53:31.377Z article:section: Science og:title: Scientists Just Observed the Most Distant Star Ever Seen og:description: They named it Icarus og:url: https://time.com/5227443/hubble-telescope-icarus-star/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0e94cb35bbd7c4e0/6987eca3cd1bbac4216f91f3/hubble.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The Hubble Space Telescope orbiting the Earth, c1990s. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Scientists Just Observed the Most Distant Star Ever Seen twitter:description: They named it Icarus twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0e94cb35bbd7c4e0/6987eca3cd1bbac4216f91f3/hubble.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Scientists Just Observed the Most Distant Star Ever Seen > Sponsored content. 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It reaches 40,000 subscribers with a 34.2% open rate and a 2.1% click rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: The Future of Telescopes [Watch (HLS stream): The Future of Telescopes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Ury7rR8x.m3u8) (3:17)  _Published 2017-07-31. For astronomers, telescopes are the one indispensable tool. It’s a good thing then that we are in living in something of a boom time for telescope building—and some of the best instruments are being deployed in one of two places: Chile or space._ by [Aric Jenkins](https://time.com/author/aric-jenkins/) ## Aric Jenkins Apr 4, 2018 12:27 PM UTC  The Hubble Space Telescope orbiting the Earth The Hubble Space Telescope orbiting the Earth Ann Ronan Pictures—Print Collector—Getty Images by [Aric Jenkins](https://time.com/author/aric-jenkins/) ## Aric Jenkins Apr 4, 2018 12:27 PM UTC The powerful [Hubble Space Telescope](http://time.com/4662484/nasa-hubble-telescope-rotten-egg-star/) recently helped scientists make a stunning observation: the most distant star ever seen, 9 billion light years away. Astronomers affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley were able to observe the star, dubbed Icarus, thanks to a rare cosmic phenomenon called gravitational lensing, which bends light from distant galaxies to allow researchers to make out individual stars that are typically too far away to see. “You can see individual galaxies out there, but this star is at least 100 times farther away than the next individual star we can study, except for supernova explosions,” Patrick Kelly, the study’s lead author who serves on the faculty at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, [said in a statement.](http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/04/02/cosmic-lens-helps-hubble-capture-most-distant-star-ever-seen/) The study was published on Monday in the journal _Nature Astronomy_. “For the first time ever we’re seeing an individual normal star — not a supernova, not a gamma ray burst, but a single stable star — at a distance of nine billion light years,” added Alex Filippenko, a professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley who co-authored the study. “These lenses are amazing cosmic telescopes.” Icacrus’ distance of 9 billion light years means that light from the star has been traveling across the universe back to Earth for that amount of time. In contrast, the universe itself it estimated to be approximately 13.8 billion years old. “There are alignments like this all over the place as background stars or stars in lensing galaxies move around, offering the possibility of studying very distant stars dating from the early universe, just as we have been using gravitational lensing to study distant galaxies,” Filippenko said in the statement. “For this type of research, nature has provided us with a larger telescope than we can possibly build.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5227443/hubble-telescope-icarus-star/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5227443/hubble-telescope-icarus-star/"},"headline":"Scientists Just Observed the Most Distant Star Ever Seen","datePublished":"2018-04-04T12:27:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:53:31.377Z","description":"They named it Icarus","url":"https://time.com/5227443/hubble-telescope-icarus-star/","keywords":["Space","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0e94cb35bbd7c4e0/6987eca3cd1bbac4216f91f3/hubble.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Aric Jenkins","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/aric-jenkins/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0e94cb35bbd7c4e0/6987eca3cd1bbac4216f91f3/hubble.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The Hubble Space Telescope orbiting the Earth, c1990s.","caption":"The Hubble Space Telescope orbiting the Earth, c1990s.","creditText":"Ann Ronan Pictures—Print Collector—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/space/","name":"Space"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5227443/hubble-telescope-icarus-star/","name":"Scientists Just Observed the Most Distant Star Ever Seen"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Future of Telescopes","description":"For astronomers, telescopes are the one indispensable tool. 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