Quyllur
Red supergiant
First red supergiant seen at cosmological distance
The first red supergiant ever detected at cosmological distance, found by JWST behind the El Gordo galaxy cluster. Where other lensed stars this far away are hot and blue, Quyllur is cool and red, its light stretched and magnified across more than ten billion years.
Illustration generated from temperature, not a photograph
3,500 K
surface · red
965 R☉
radius (the Sun = 1)
10.6 billion ly
from Earth
z = 2.1878
redshift
Its light has been travelling 10.6 billion years to reach us, so you see Quyllur as it was 10.6 billion years ago, early in the history of the universe.
Source · Diego et al. 2023, A&A 672, A3 · View on Wikidata
It lives in
a lensed arc behind the El Gordo cluster
Too distant to catalog as a galaxy of its own; visible only because a closer mass bends its light toward us.