In February 2014, astronomers from the Australian national University has discovered the oldest star in the Universe. It is located 6,000 light years from Earth in the constellation Hydra, and its age is 13.7 billion years. It turned out that the ancient there are stars near us in the milky Way galaxy. It is one of them was discovered by researchers from Monash University in Australia. The age of the star is 13.5 billion years old.
The discovery was named 2MASS J18082002-5104378 B. All this time she remained unnoticed because of the tiny size and dull looking. Discover ancient star was only due to the presence of the bright companion star larger.
The researchers were able to determine the age of the star thanks to a careful spectral analysis. The fact that the first generation of stars formed after the Big Bang, consisted of light elements like hydrogen, helium and lithium. In the next generations they gradually increased the number of metals. Thus, the “metallicity” of stars was a good indicator for determining their age.
According to scientists, 2MASS J18082002-5104378 B refers to the second generation of stars. Its mass is only 10% of the mass of the Sun, and the amount of metals in it is a 10% share of all metals on Earth. Astrophysicist Andrew Casey, participated in the study confessed that they have never discovered a star with such a tiny mass and tiny amounts of metals.
Scientists assume that in our galaxy there could be other ancient stars, but they are difficult to detect because of their small size:
These stars are extremely rare — the process of finding them like finding needles in a haystack. But due to the huge amount of data collected by ground and space telescopes, we are more than ever close to understanding how stars formed in the early Universe.
This discovery allows us to look at the formation of stars in the Universe from a different angle. As one of the oldest stars are located in the thin disk of the milky Way, the question of the age of our galaxy re-opened. Perhaps it is much older than previously thought.
What do you think, what other invisible objects in our galaxy? Your realistic and fantastic assumptions it is possible to write in the comments or our Telegram chat.