Australian National University | 2015 Nov 12
Astronomers have discovered the oldest known stars, dating from before the Milky Way Galaxy formed, when the Universe was just 300 million years old.Click to play embedded YouTube video.
The stars, found near the centre of the Milky Way, are surprisingly pure but contain material from an even earlier star, which died in an enormous explosion called a hypernova.
"These pristine stars are among the oldest surviving stars in the Universe, and certainly the oldest stars we have ever seen," said Louise Howes, lead author of the study published in the latest issue of Nature.
"These stars formed before the Milky Way, and the galaxy formed around them," said Ms Howes, a PhD student at the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
The discovery and analysis of the nine pure stars challenges current theories about the environment of the early Universe from which these stars formed. ...
Ancient stars at the centre of the Milky Way contain ‘fingerprints’ from the very early Universe
University of Cambridge | 2015 Nov 12
Extremely metal-poor stars from the cosmic dawn in the bulge of the Milky Way - L. M. Howes et al
- Nature (online 11 Nov 2015) DOI: 10.1038/nature15747