Traces of One of the Universe's First Stars Discovered

Scientists have discovered traces of material released by the death of one of the Universe's first stars, a new study reports.

Located in the halo surrounding the Milky Way galaxy, this ancient star likely contained material blasted into space by a massive supernova explosion, researchers determined from its chemical signature. This eruption supposedly marked the death of a huge star in the early Universe - one that may have been 200 times more massive than the Sun.

"The impact of very-massive stars and their explosions on subsequent star formation and galaxy formation should be significant," lead author Wako Aoki, of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, told Space.com.

The very first stars in existence, known as Population III stars, formed from the hydrogen and helium that made up the early Universe. It is these elements that scientists used to detect such ancient stars.

However, the first massive stars would have been short-lived, so how can scientists spot them? Aoki and his team examined the makeup of their offspring - the second generation of stars formed from the material forged in the heart of the first generation. Supposedly when the first stars died, a supernova scattered their elements into space and helped create the next generation of stars.

Aoki and colleagues used the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii to perform follow-up observations of a large sample of low-mass stars with low quantities of what astronomers term "metals" - elements other than hydrogen and helium.

From this, they found SDS J0018-0939, an ancient star only 1,000 light-years from Earth.

"The low abundance of heavy elements suggests that this star is quite old - as old as 13 billion years," Aoki told Space.com.

Based on the chemical composition of SDS J0018-0939, scientists suggest that it likely evolved from the material from a single star, which could have been more than 200 times as massive as the Sun.

This is the first time that scientists have discovered traces of ancient stars and their siblings, and they hope that the results help them understand more about the early Universe.

The research is described in more detail in the journal Science.