Astronomers are constantly searching for new stars in the ongoing quest to map out the universe. One team at Monash University of Australia has found another new shiner here in the Milky Way, but according to their analysis, it’s been here a whole lot longer than we have.
Astronomers use spectrometers to determine a star’s shape and composition. Most recent planetary bodies, including Earth, contain a decent amount of metallic components in them. Even the sun is full of copper and iron, albeit in gaseous form. This new star, codenamed 2MASS J18082002–5104378 B, has only about 10% of the metallicity of Earth, the lowest metal content of any star ever discovered. Since metal as we know it was created after a few million years in the cosmic furnace, we can discern that this star, with its strikingly low metal content, is from the earliest eons of the universe, a (relative) stone’s throw from the Big Bang itself.
In addition to just being generally interesting, the age and metal content of 2MASS J18082002–5104378 B tells us that ancient stars could form from very minuscule amounts of material, and that that material doesn’t need to be heat-conductive like metal. This discovery could very well be a game-changer in the field of star study.
