Experts say it could be from just the second generation of stars after the big bang.
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00:00The universe is old, around 13.8 billion years old to be exact, but while many cosmic objects
00:09like stars come and go, they can live for a long time. And now researchers believe they
00:14have just discovered one of the oldest living stars in the universe. Its technical name is
00:19S plus J210428.01-004934.2, and it's 16,000 light years away. So how do astronomers from
00:28the National Science Foundation know it's so old? Experts analyzed the chemical makeup
00:32using cosmic spectrometers, finding that it contained elements produced only from first
00:36generation stars, but also it's extremely low in later generation materials like carbon,
00:41iron, oxygen, magnesium, and lithium, as early universe composition was less stars and planets,
00:47and more clouds of helium and hydrogen. This discovery not only means this is the first
00:51second generation star we've ever identified, but it could also point us in the direction of
00:56even older stars, perhaps even ones that were created in the first moments of the universe.