Khaberni - Astronomers have observed an exceptional star believed to be the most "pure from impurities" body in the universe, characterized by its unique chemical composition that mimics the composition of the earliest stars in the universe.
A team led by Alexander Ji from the University of Chicago said that the star, named SDSS J0715-7334, offers a glimpse of the earliest stars that formed immediately after the Big Bang.
The star originates from a dwarf galaxy called the "Large Magellanic Cloud" located about 163,000 light-years from the Milky Way. Since then, it has migrated to the halo of the Milky Way, making it, according to scientists, a "galactic migrant."
What gives it such a level of purity is its lack of contamination with elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. It contains only 0.8 parts per million of heavy elements, making it about 20,000 times purer than the sun.
This composition makes it a likely candidate to be one of the earliest stars in the universe, as astronomers have previously assumed that such stars would have exploded long ago due to not containing heavier elements.
Its existence indicates that there are specific places in the universe that contain different environments allowing stars to cool without the need for elements like carbon.
The scientists explained in a research paper under review that the earliest stars in the universe formed from completely pure gas, making them so massive that none of them survived to our present day.
The research team clarified that if these early stars had produced smaller stars, they might still exist today and can be distinguished by containing the lowest proportion of metals (i.e., elements heavier than helium).
They added: "The least metal-containing stars are found in the thick disc of our galaxy, the Milky Way... We now reveal the discovery and detailed analysis of the poorest metal-containing star yet found, which is the giant red star SDSS J0715-7334."
The scientists concluded: "This star possesses the purest chemical composition known of any body in the universe ever."
The initial research paper titled "A Near-Pure Star from the Large Magellanic Cloud" was published in the arXiv journal.
