[Australia] Oldest known star in the universe discovered - 13.7 billion years old.

[John W]

They identified it as such from its chemical composition and size, as disclosed by absorption bands in its emission spectrum (below, but which will not show up on groups that do not allow attachments). However, to have survived as a main-sequence star so long, it would almost certainly be an M-class red dwarf star, with a luminosity so low that any planet of habitable size in what would be its "habitable zone" would have captured (tidally locked) rotation, making the possibility of ancient life on it most unlikely. Besides, such stars are deficient in blue and near-ultraviolet light, which are essential for life as we know it.

 John W.
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Subject: *? 2 ALL: OLDEST KNOWN STAR IN THE UNIVERSE DISCOVERED - WHAT ARE YOUR COMMENTS?*
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OLDEST KNOWN STAR IN THE UNIVERSE DISCOVERED

-

(above): The star is located in a picturesque

part of the southern sky between the Large

and Small

Magellanic Clouds, two galaxies that orbit around the Milky
Way.

[Image

credit: Mike Bessell, ANU (left); Digital Sky Survey*
(right)]

Sara Gates reports on the Huffington
Talk about ancient. Astronomers from the Australian

National University have discovered the oldest known
starabout 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
discoveryusing one of the powerful Magellan
telescopes.

The astronomers published their findings in

Natureon Feb. 9.

Keller and the team believe the star belongs to a second

generation of stars, which formed when primordial stars died out. By studying
the chemical composition of the newly discovered star, researchers should be
able to learn more about the first stars that formed after the Big Bang.

"It’s giving us insight into our fundamental place in the

universe. What we’re seeing is the origin of where all the
material around us that we need to survivecame
from," Keller told Reuters.

Previously, the title of oldest known star in the

universewas held by HD 140283, which is about
13.2 billion years old.. And while the newfound 13.7-billion-year-old star is
currently the oldest known in the universe, there may be other
second-generation stars out there.

"There's likely to be more

stars like this, but they are very hard to find,"
ANU professor Mike Bessell, who first spotted SMSS, told The Wall Street
Journal. "We have to sort through vast amounts of data to find the very few of
them that are out there. It's a needle in a haystack."

*The Digitized Sky Surveys were produced at the Space

Telescope Science Institute under U.S. Government grant NAG
W-2166.

(above): Dr.

Stefan Keller

Oldest known

star in the universe discovered – what are your
comments?Greg Dempsey

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