2002/10/30 by N. Christlieb, Norbert Christlieb, Michael S. Bessell +12 · 8 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Abundance (ecology) #Astronomy #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Biology #Ecology #Milky Way #Physics #Population #Star formation #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/nature01142
published as Nature 419 (2002) 904-906 · Offprint of Nature 419 (2002), 904-906 (issue 31 October 2002)
openalex publication_date 2002/10/30 · arxiv created 2002/11/13 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The chemical composition of the most metal-deficient stars reflects the composition of the gas from which they formed. These old stars provide crucial clues to the star formation history and the synthesis of chemical elements in the early Universe. They are the local relics of epochs otherwise observable only at very high redshifts; if totally metal-free (``population III'') stars could be found, this would allow the direct study of the pristine gas from the Big Bang. Earlier searches for such stars found none with an iron abundance less than 1/10,000 that of the Sun, leading to the suggestion that low-mass stars could only form from clouds above a critical iron abundance. Here we report the discovery of a low-mass star with an iron abundance as low as 1/200,000 of the solar value. This discovery suggests that population III stars could still exist, that is, that the first generation of stars also contained long-lived low-mass objects. The previous failure to find them may be an observational selection effect.