Which Stars Cast the Milky Way's First Light?

[CygnusX-1]

by Dr. Ken Croswell

Hubble spots a star that likely predates its oldest star clusters.

Link at Scientific American.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Thanks for the post! Sorry you aren't generating responses at the moment. Do you have any further information, come to any new conclusions or is it possible to reword the post?

 

[CygnusX-1]

Well, the main result of the new work is that, in both of the cases studied, a halo star is much older than a globular star cluster of the same iron abundance. It will be interesting to see whether this result holds up after the Gaia satellite raises that number from two to 20 million.

 

[Chronos]

The oldest stars in the galaxy apparently reside in the halo region, as noted. My guess is these stars were drawn to the MW while it was still quite young. Of course, stars near the center of the galaxy are more difficult to isolate, so it could just be a selection effect.