Some of the oldest, and purest, stars in the Universe have been discovered by astronomers working with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the European Southern Observatory, in the process plugging a gaping hole in our theories of how the Milky Way formed.

Our current ideas of galaxy formation involve smaller dwarf galaxies merging to gradually form larger galaxies. This is called hierarchical formation and means that the oldest stars in our Galaxy should have originally come from dwarf galaxies, but whenever astronomers have searched for these ancient stars in the surviving dwarfs nearby, they have always turned up a blank. This was a problem until a multinational team of European astronomers led by Dr Else Starkenburg, of the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, took a careful look at what the starlight from these ancient stars should be like.

Any elements heavier than the primordial hydrogen and helium formed in the big bang are termed ‘metals’ by astronomers. They are cooked up by the nuclear fusion reactions inside the cores of stars. Younger stars, like the Sun, contain a greater abundance of ‘metals’ because there have been many previous generations of stars to create these elements. Conversely, older stars don’t have the benefit of many generations of ancestors, and consequently have lower metal abundance. The older the star, the lower its metallicity.

So astronomers have been searching for these extremely metal-poor stars in dwarf galaxies, but when Starkenburg compared the spectra of the starlight they were seeing with computer models of what the spectra should look like, they realised that the difference between normal metal poor stars and extremely metal poor stars was very subtle and could be easily missed.

“We have, in effect, found a flaw in the forensic methods used until now,” says Starkenburg. Realising what they were looking for, Starkenburg’s team used the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) on the VLT to go back and re-observe some of the nearby dwarfs. They found that previous measurements did not have the sensitivity to pick out the spectral signatures of the extremely low metallicity stars at the distance of the dwarf galaxies.

“Compared to the vague fingerprints that we had before, this would be as if we looked at the fingerprint through a microscope,” says team-member Vanessa Hill of the Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur, France. “Unfortunately just a small number of stars can be observed this way because it is very time consuming.”

The few that they did find included some record breaking stars. Three stars in particular were tremendously pristine, with relative abundances of metals between 1/3,000th and 1/10,000th of the Sun, the lowest abundances ever measured in any stars. It is not possible to calculate the exact age of the stars, according to Starkenburg, because the efficiency by which metals were produced in the early Universe is still uncertain, but these would have to belong to one of the first generations of stars in the Universe. Even so, we know they cannot be the oldest. Some other generation must have produced the small amount of metals in these stars. This first generation are called Population III stars (Population II stars consist of poor and extremely metal poor stars, while Population I stars are young, metal-rich stars like the Sun) and were born 400 million years after the big bang. Unfortunately we will never directly see a Population III star – they all exploded as supernovae just a few millions years after they were born.

Our latest 132-page Astronomy Now special edition is an extravaganza of astronomy for the year ahead, with a complete 30-page guide to observing the planets, moon, meteor showers, two solar eclipses, and the deep sky in 2010.
 U.K. STORE
 E.U. STORE
 U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE

Hubble Reborn
Hubble Reborn takes the reader on a journey through the Universe with spectacular full-colour pictures of galaxies, nebulae, planets and stars as seen through Hubble's eyes, along the way telling the dramatic story of the space telescope, including interviews with key scientists and astronauts.
 U.K. STORE
 E.U. STORE
 U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE

3D Universe
Witness the most awesome sights of the Universe as they were meant to be seen in this 100-page extravaganza of planets, galaxies and star-scapes, all in 3D!
 U.K. STORE
 E.U. STORE
 U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE

This special publication features the photography of British astro-imager Nik Szymanek and covers a range of photographic methods from basic to advanced. Beautiful pictures of the night sky can be obtained with a simple camera and tripod before tackling more difficult projects, such as guided astrophotography through the telescope and CCD imaging.
 U.K. STORE
 E.U. STORE
 U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE

Explore the Universe with these new versions of the award-winning Starry Night Software. Available now from the Astronomy Now Store.
 U.K. STORE
 E.U. STORE
 U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE

Astronomy Now is pleased to announce the publication of Exploring Mars. The very best images of Mars taken by orbiting spacecraft and NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers fill up the 98 glossy pages of this special edition!
 U.K. STORE
 E.U. STORE
 U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE

This new poster features some of the best pictures from NASA's amazing Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity.
 U.K. STORE
 E.U. STORE
 U.S. & WORLDWIDE STORE