Although NASA retired the Kepler space telescope in 2018, researchers are still analyzing the data it generated. The farthest exoplanet discovered by the space telescope, the single star and the farthest galaxy ever seen have been recorded.

This month is eventful for astronomywith a series of discoveries that set new distance records.

These discoveries could be the subject of follow-up observations by the James Webb Space Telescope and other future projects.

As we mentioned before, although NASA retired the Kepler space telescope in 2018, it continues to generate data that researchers are extracting. And it is that, without going any further, last month, the count of confirmed exoplanets passed the 5,000 milestone and Kepler discovered 2,709.

Well, this month, a team from the University of Manchester reports that a new planet has emerged from data collected in mid-2016, when Kepler was monitoring the stars. This world is 17,000 light years away, twice the distance of its previous record.

On the other hand, the newly found star (WHL0137-LS), also known as Earendel, it is so far away that its light has taken 12.9 billion years to reach Earthappearing before us when the Universe was only 7% of its current age.

This has broken the previous record, which had a star called Icarus, whose light took 9.3 billion years to reach us. Earendel’s composition will be of great interest to astronomers, since it was formed before the Universe was filled with elements produced by the different generations of stars.

“With Webb, we will be able to see stars even further away than Earendelwhich would be incredibly exciting,” says Brian Welch, a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the study. “We’ll go as far as we can. I’d love for Webb to beat Earendel’s distance record.”

The third and final discovery this month is the farthest known galaxy. An international team from NASA has announced the details of a candidate they have called HD1. This galaxy has traveled 13.5 billion years on its way to Earth.

Based on what was observed, the researchers are quite clear that, due to their brightness, they can say that bright objects already existed. when the Universe was only 2% of its current age.

Knowing all this, it is obvious that both the exoplanet, the star Earendel and HD1, will be the target of the James Webb Space Telescope, as well as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is scheduled to launch in 2027.