Ancient stars shed light on the prehistory of the Milky Way
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - 16:31
in Astronomy & Space
Some of the oldest stars in the Milky Way -- a kind of stellar fossils, contain abnormally large amounts of heavy elements like gold, platinum and uranium. This has been a mystery, since it's usually seen in much later generations of stars. Researchers have been studying these ancient stars and with recent observations they have concluded how they could have been formed in the early history of the Milky Way.