Experts Believe That This Could Be The Most Ancient Star in the Universe

Experts say it could be from just the second generation of stars after the big bang.

Transcript

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.