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Australian astronomers get first glimpse of oldest stars

Xinhua, November 12, 2015 Adjust font size:

Australian astronomers are the first in the world to catch a glimpse of the oldest stars ever seen by humans, with some of the stars said to have formed when the Universe was just 300 million years old.

The stars, seen near the center of the Milky Way galaxy, were found to outdate the galaxy itself, in a discovery that Louise Howes from the Australian National University (ANU) described as extremely exciting.

"These pristine stars are among the oldest surviving stars in the Universe, and certainly the oldest stars (astronomers) have ever seen," Howes said on Thursday.

"These stars formed before the Milky Way, and the galaxy formed around them," he said in a statement.

Howes, the lead author of the study published in the latest issue of Nature journal, said that by using the Anglo-Australian Telescope in rural New South Wales and the Magellan Telescope in Chile, researchers were able to focus on a distinct set of stars in the center of the galaxy.

The team sifted through approximately 5 million stars before coming across the age-old specimens, something that project leader Professor Martin Asplund described as "finding a needle in a haystack."

"The ANU SkyMapper telescope has a unique ability to detect the distinct colors of anemic stars - stars with little iron - which has been vital for this search," Asplund said on Thursday.

He added that the stars had spent their "entire lives" in the same location within the Milky Way's vicinity, an indication that the stars really are the oldest seen in the Universe. Enditem