Some time after Eärendil and Elwing had departed across the Sea, those in Middle-earth witnessed the rising of a new and brilliant star in the West. This was the Silmaril that Eärendil wore on his brow, carried aloft in his ship Vingilot. In Middle-earth, it was taken as a sign that the Valar had not forsaken the Outer Lands, and so it was named Gil-Estel, which means 'Star of High Hope'. That hope was fulfilled soon after, when the armies of the Valar came against Morgoth in Angband, and utterly overthrew him in the War of Wrath.
Notes
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Eärendil arrived in Valinor in I 542, and he piloted Vingilot into the heavens with the shining star on his brow soon afterward. It is not completely clear whether that happened in the same year he arrived, but in any event Gil-Estel rose out of the West before the War of Wrath, which began in I 545. These dates are taken from The Tale of Years in volume XI of The History of Middle-earth, and it should be noted that they underwent considerable revision. The dates given here seem to be Tolkien's final preference.
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