Right in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, home to Earth, 1,300 stars born since the dawn of the universe have unexpectedly surfaced in the Gaia satellite data from the European Space Agency (ESA).
The Galactic Center – the very “Milky Way” we often observe in the sky – as seen from Earth, with the marked monstrous black hole at its center – Image: SCITECH DAILY.
Some of these stars even appeared less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang, making them nearly 13 billion years old. This astonishing discovery comes from a leading research study conducted by astronomer Anke Arentsen from the University of Cambridge (UK), presented at the National Astronomy Meeting in the UK. They relied on the low-metallicity nature of these primordial stars, according to Science Alert.
As many studies have demonstrated, the early universe was chemically simplistic, consisting mainly of hydrogen and helium. However, it was these stars composed of these basic elements that synthesized heavier elements through nuclear fusion reactions.
In their final stages, they died and contributed new, heavier elements to the cosmos. Over billions of years and generations, these stars have enriched the universe with the chemical diversity we observe today.
Researchers delved into the center of the Milky Way, identifying 8,000 candidate low-metallicity stars, filtering it down to 1,300 stars confirmed as remnants of the “dawn of the universe.”
This discovery promises to open new horizons for research aimed at understanding how the universe began.
Detecting ancient objects in such proximity is an invaluable treasure, as scientists have predominantly relied on studying the past through telescopes capturing objects billions of light-years away.
The fundamental principle of imaging is that we see objects as they were when the light began its journey towards our eyes. Thus, images from billions of light-years away are images of the universe’s past, with minor variations due to intervening objects. Therefore, studying the distant cosmos is also studying the universe’s history.
With the newly discovered ancient stars, they likely formed in some ancient galaxy before a series of cataclysmic mergers created the colossal Milky Way we know today. Scientists are mapping their orbits to further understand this phenomenon.