A star TWO LIGHT YEARS ACROSS?

[BeAChooser]

Just to show the lack of common sense in modern astrophysicists and *science communicators*, consider this example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXbtBrbk3co&t=659s "JWST observes Earendel - the most distant star known"

Starting around 10 minutes into the video, Becky Smethurst discusses something Hubble observed and says …

“Now usually the only things large enough and bright enough to be magnified in that way are entire galaxies of billions or trillions of stars in the early universe, but the thing spotted in Hubble Space Telescope images didn’t look like it came for a galaxy at all. All the models we had of that image from the Hubble Space Telescope suggested the thing that was being lensed, brightened and magnified … that object … was actually only 2 light years across, suggesting either it could be very compact star cluster, smaller than we’d ever seen before, or maybe like a binary pair of stars, or even just a single star in the universe 12.8 billion light years away."

Seriously? A single star 2 light years across, Becky? LOL!

Then she goes on to tell us what JWST has found. That the object is less than 0.02pc across, and since a parsec is 3.26 light years, it’s less than 0.65 light years across. MUCH MUCH SMALLER. But that's still huge … 4000 times the distance from the earth to the sun (i.e., 4000 au). Becky then says we still can’t rule out a single star.

Seriously? What’s the largest star we know of, folks? I think it’s Stephenson 2-18, which is about 2150 times the diameter of the Sun. Since the sun’s diameter is 0.0093 au, it’s about 20 au across. So Becky is suggesting there could be a star 200 times larger still. Is that at all rational? Or has Becky’s been smoking the same stuff that led her to believe in dark matter, dark energy, inflation and the Big Bang?

[crawler]

I think your 0.65 should be 0.065.

[BeAChooser]

I think your 0.65 should be 0.065.

Yes.

[nick c]

Notice in the video linked in the OP, that gravitational lensing is repeatedly invoked.
Don Scott wrote:
Gravitational Lensing Used As Excuse Again
Gravitational Lensing or Death of a Theory?
Gravitational Lensing or Birth of a Theory?

This estimate of the size of the object is dependent on the assumption that redshift can be used to determine distance. If as Arp has theorized, there is a substantial intrinsic component to redshift then distance estimates of high redshift objects are likely greatly exaggerated. And so overestimating the distance of an object can result in over estimates of the size of objects is too.
That is, this giant star is probably a smaller object that is closer to us, rather than a larger object that is very far away.

[crawler]

Notice in the video linked in the OP, that gravitational lensing is repeatedly invoked.
Don Scott wrote:
Gravitational Lensing Used As Excuse Again
Gravitational Lensing or Death of a Theory?
Gravitational Lensing or Birth of a Theory?

This estimate of the size of the object is dependent on the assumption that redshift can be used to determine distance. If as Arp has theorized, there is a substantial intrinsic component to redshift then distance estimates of high redshift objects are likely greatly exaggerated. And so overestimating the distance of an object can result in over estimates of the size of objects is too.
That is, this giant star is probably a smaller object that is closer to us, rather than a larger object that is very far away.

I have never studied bending -- but i reckon that closer means heavier not less-heavy.

[Open Mind]

"Seriously? A single star 2 light years across, Becky? LOL!"

They should name that star "occam's razor".

Cosmology is starting to remind me of 12 year old D&D