Talk about ancient.
Astronomers from the
Australian National
University have
discovered the oldest
known star about 6,000
light-years from Earth.
They believe the
ancient star formed
around 13.7 billion years
ago, shortly after the
Big Bang.
“This is the first time
that we’ve been able to
unambiguously say that
we’ve found the
chemical fingerprint of a
first star,” lead
researcher Dr. Stefan
Keller, an astronomer at
the university’s
Research School of
Astronomy and
Astrophysics, said in a
written statement.
A research team at the
Siding Spring
Observatory, which is
part of the Research
School, first observed
the star (dubbed SMSS
J031300.36-670839.3) on
Jan. 2 using the
SkyMapper telescope.
Then, astronomers in
Chile confirmed the
discovery using one of
the powerful Magellan
telescopes.
The astronomers
published their findings
in Nature on Feb. 9.
Keller and the team
believe the star belongs
to a second generation
of star.