Newly Discovered Star Could Be Big Bang Clue

An international team of astronomers has discovered a distant star that could date to the beginning of the universe.

Astronomers reported in Thursday’s edition of Nature that the giant star is a galactic rarity because it is virtually metal-free, unlike the other, more-modern known stars. “These old stars provide crucial clues to the star formation history and the synthesis of chemical elements in the early universe,” astronomers said. “If totally metal-free stars could be found, this would allow the direct study of the pristine gas from the big bang.”

The existence of stars with no or very low metal content has been hypothesized for decades, but none has ever been found before -- throwing the theory into doubt. At the dawn of time, these stars contained most of the elements in the universe. But quite early in their history, these nuclear furnaces began to convert the lighter elements into heavier ones such as carbon, phosphorous and lead.

In theory, therefore, there were once many low- or zero-metal stars, some of which should still exist. But they had not been found until the discovery of this star, called HE0107-5240.