ANU Astronomers Discover Oldest Known Star

SkyMapper, a fully automated 1.35m wide-angle optical telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in northern New South Wales, Australia has mapped a star which formed just after the Big Bang explosion, about 13.7 billion years ago. This star which goes by the name of SMSS J031300.36-670839.3, is the oldest one ever detected and is about 6000 light years away from earth, which is not that far away on an astronomical range. This is regarded as a remarkable achievement in efforts to solve the discrepancies between the observations and the predictions of the Big Bang. The team from Australian National University's Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, headed by Dr. Stefan Keller made the observations from the SkyMapper Telescope and confirmed them with the help of Magellan Telescope in Chile. The SkyMapper is on a mission to study ancient stars and has mapped about 60 million stars in one year.
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ANU Team Lead researcher Dr Stefan Keller and team member Prof. Mike Bessell

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Dr Stefan Keller with the SkyMapper telescope
Image Credits: ANU Website​
This discovery allows researchers to study the first stars which formed immediately after Big Bang. Professor Mike Bessell, a research team member said that the probability of discovery of such star was one in a million and it was like "finding a needle in a haystack". Thus for the first time the 'chemical fingerprint' of a first star has been found and the results are surprising. The SM0313 has a very high amount of carbon and a much lower amount of iron than previously thought, making it a true 'second generation' star. The first generation or primordial stars were formed immediately after Big Bang. These stars lived fast, died quickly and have not survived to the present day. However, the second generation stars, like the one discovered has formed as a result of disintegration of primordial stars. It is a little smaller than Sun and has an enormous lifespan of 13 billion years.
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SMSS J031300.36-670839.3 (centre of the image)
Image Credit: Digital Sky Survey​
The discovery of SM0313 has provided insights into the activity of the first stars. Stars are formed inside out, that is, new elements formed at the centre of the star fuse together to form heavier elements like iron and consequently, push lighter elements closer to the surface. It was previously thought that the primordial stars died in violent explosions, polluting the space with heavier elements. However, on finding that the carbon content of the SM0313 is about 1000 times greater than it's iron content, scientists have come up with another explanation: The primordial stars did disintegrate, but not so violently that the inner layers spewed their contents. Instead, only the outer cores of lighter elements like carbon, magnesium polluted the space. The early supernovae explosions were of surprisingly low energy and the heavy cores were consumed by the black holes that formed at the centre of explosion. Hence the second generation stars, like the oldest one discovered, formed when the resulting gas clouds from explosions which were high in carbon and low in iron coalesced.

Thus, this major discovery has allowed researchers to visualize the nature of universe when it was in its infancy.

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