Australian scientists find a star 13,600 million ... - Ecodiario

afp | 02/10/2014 – 1:04

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Hallan a star of 13,600 million years. Photo: EP

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Australian astronomers have announced the discovery of a star than 13,600 million years, which makes it the oldest star ever before.

This celestial body formed “only” about two hundred million years after the Big Bang, the origin of the birth of the universe, according to these experts.

stars hitherto aspired to the title of the oldest in the world – two bodies identified by European and American teams in 2007 and 2013 respectively – have about 13,200 million years

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In cosmic terms, this star “Methuselah” is relatively close to us, according to Stefan Keller of the National University of Australia.

located in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, at a distance of about 6,000 light years from Earth. This star is listed as J031300.36-670839.3 SMSS.

“This shows that this star is as old is the complete absence of any detectable level of iron in the spectrum of light emerging from the star,” Keller told AFP.

Big Bang gave birth to a full hydrogen, helium and traces of lithium universe explained the scientist.

All other elements we see today were forged in stars born in clouds of gas and dust left by supernovae -. huge stars explode at the end of his life

endless recycling process has an interesting tool for astrophysicists.

One way to determine the stellar age is iron. The lower the iron content in the spectrum of the light of a more ancient star is.

“The level of iron in the universe increases with time, as successive generations of stars form and die,” says Keller.

The southern skies

“We can use the iron status of a star as a” clock “that tells us when the star was formed,” he adds.

“For the star that we have identified, the amount of iron present is less than one millionth of the sun and a factor of at least 60 times less than any other star known. This indicates that our star is the oldest ever found, “he said.

This star was discovered with the telescope “SkyMapper” from the National University of Australia, which is conducting a five-year investigation of the southern skies.

Methuselah was created from cosmic material from a supernova low energy, according to the paper, published in the British journal Nature.

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