A rendering of the evolution of the first generation of supermassive stars into pair-instability supernovae (PISNe). PISNe eject multielement-rich material into the interstellar medium, where they form the next-generation stars. /National Astronomical Observatories of China
An international research team has discovered the oldest known star in the galactic halo. Their findings indicate that it was born in the gas cloud left by a first-generation star with a mass up to 260 times that of our sun.
This discovery has improved mankind's understanding of the first stars and the evolution of the Milky Way and the universe.
The new study led by Chinese astronomers at the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) was published online in Nature on June 7.
Zhao Gang, leader of the research project, said that the first stars illuminated the universe during the cosmic dawn and put an end to the cosmic "dark ages" that followed the Big Bang. However, the distribution of their mass is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the cosmos.
Numerical simulations of the formation of the first stars estimate that the mass of the first stars could reach up to several hundred solar masses. Among them, the first stars with masses between 140 and 260 solar masses ended up as a special type of supernova, called pair-instability supernovae (PISNe), which would imprint a unique chemical signature in the atmosphere of the next generation of stars, said Zhao.
However, no direct evidence of such a type of supernova had previously been found.
Based on the survey by the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) in China and the follow-up observation by the Subaru telescope in Japan, scientists identified a chemically peculiar star named LAMOST J1010+2358. Its special chemical characteristics are consistent with the theory of PISN. Scientists confirmed that this star was formed in a gas cloud dominated by the yields of a PISN with 260 solar masses.
"Our discovery is the first clear direct evidence of the existence of a PISN from a very massive first-generation star in the early universe," said Xing Qianfan, a key member of the study from NAOC.
This discovery proves that the mass of the first-generation stars can reach up to several hundred solar masses, and will have a profound impact on the research of the origin of elements, star formation in the early universe, and the chemical evolution of galaxies, said Zhao.
(With input from Xinhua)