The Milky Way's ancient heart: VISTA finds remains of archaic globular star cluster
Wednesday, October 12, 2016 - 06:31
in Astronomy & Space
Ancient stars, of a type known as RR Lyrae, have been discovered in the center of the Milky Way for the first time, using ESO's infrared VISTA telescope. RR Lyrae stars typically reside in ancient stellar populations over 10 billion years old. Their discovery suggests that the bulging center of the Milky Way likely grew through the merging of primordial star clusters. These stars may even be the remains of the most massive and oldest surviving star cluster of the entire Milky Way.