Australian-led astronomers find the most iron-poor star in the Galaxy, hinting at the nature of the first stars in the Universe.
A visualisation of the formation of the first stars. Credit: Wise, Abel, Kaehler (KIPAC/SLAC)
A newly discovered ancient star containing a record-low amount of iron carries evidence of a class of even older stars, long hypothesised but assumed to have vanished.
In a paper published in the journal Monthly Notices of
the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, researchers led by Dr Thomas
Nordlander of the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3
Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) confirm the existence of an ultra-metal-poor red
giant star, located in the halo of the Milky Way, on the other side of the
Galaxy about 35,000 light-years from Earth.
