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11mo ago

Astronomers Discover Three of the Universe's Oldest Stars in the Milky Way

MIT researchers identify ancient stars in our galaxy's halo, offering new insights into early cosmic history.

MIT astronomers discovered three of the oldest stars in the universe, and they live in our own galactic neighborhood. The stars are in the Milky Way’s “halo” — the cloud of stars that envelopes the main galactic disk — and they appear to have formed between 12 and 13 billion years ago, when the very first galaxies were taking shape. Credits:Image: Serge Brunier; NASA
An artist’s conception of the Milky Way Galaxy. Image credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Overview

  • The stars are estimated to have formed between 12 and 13 billion years ago, soon after the Big Bang.
  • These stars exhibit retrograde motion, indicating they originated outside the Milky Way.
  • The discovery was made by analyzing data from the Magellan-Clay telescope and Gaia satellite.
  • The stars have low levels of strontium and barium, typical of the universe's earliest stars.
  • This finding provides a new method for locating ancient stars within our galaxy.