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Oldest Carbon-rich Stars Open a Window to Early Cosmic Chemistry

March 30, 2026
Oldest Carbon-rich Stars Open a Window to Early Cosmic Chemistry
By Carolyn Collins Petersen (https://ift.tt/N5UlvGO)

This image shows stars in the ultra-faint dwarf galaxy, Pictor II, a satellite galaxy of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Astronomers discovered a star here, PicII-503, with the lowest iron content ever measured outside of the Milky Way and an overabundance of carbon. It's the clearest example of a star within a primordial system that preserves the chemical enrichment of the Universe’s first stars and a missing link that connects carbon-enhanced stars observed in the Milky Way halo to an origin in ancient dwarf galaxies. Courtesy NOIRLab.

Astronomers studying the ultra-faint dwarf galaxy Pictor II have found an extremely chemically peculiar star that contains traces of elements created by the first stars in the Universe. It's called PicII-503, a "second-generation star" that is one of the most chemically primitive stars ever found.



March 31, 2026 at 04:40AM
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