Hubble space telescope captures image of most distant star ever seen

Icarus is a blue supergiant, a rare type of star that is larger than the Sun and far more luminous

It might look like a tiny speck amid a bejewelled vista of the universe, but scientists say a pinprick of light in an image captured by the Hubble space telescope is the most distant individual star ever seen that is not a supernova.

The team behind the find say the light was emitted from the star - dubbed Icarus but officially named MACS J1149+2223 Lensed Star 1 - when it was more than 9bn light years from Earth. Icarus is now much further away but will have died, forming either a black hole or a neutron star.