Australian astronomers discovered oldest known star in universe

Australian astronomers discovered oldest known star in universe

Australian  astronomers have found the oldest known star in the universe, a discovery that may help to resolve a long-standing discrepancy between observations and predictions of the Big Bang billions of years ago. The discovery was published in the journal Nature.

• The star, named SMSS J031300.36-670839.3, is estimated to be 13.6 billion years old and is much older than previous stars found in 2007 and 2013, which were believed to be 13.2 billion years old.
• The star was first spotted on January 2 in the Milky Way, 6,000 light years away from the Earth using the ANU Skymapper telescope.
• The composition of the newly-discovered star shows it was formed in the wake of a primordial star, which had a mass 60 times that of our Sun.
• This new discovery suggests early stars were much larger and would have burned more lithium than experts previously realised. The stars burn the lithium, they blow up, and do not emit much iron. This helps bring the lithium abundance into line with what the Big Bang theory predicts.