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Ancient stars located astonishingly near to our sunshine work less than a billion age after theBig Bang — suggesting part of theMilky Wayis much erstwhile than antecedently imagine , a study has find .
Most stars , includingthe Dominicus , are locate in a thin disk rotating around the center of the beetleweed . Researchers thought this disk formed around 8 to 10 billion geezerhood ago , but with the assistant of machine learning , they ’ve find some of its wiz are more than 13 billion years old .
The area of stars sampled by new Gaia mission data. Our sun is located in the middle of the contours, while the red region surrounding it covers the stars for which there are reliable age estimates.
Researchers date these ancient stars by studying data pick up by theEuropean Space Agency’sGaia spacecraftand post their determination to the pre - printarXivserver earlier this yr . The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam ( AIP ) in Germany annunciate the breakthrough on Wednesday , July 31 .
The universe is around13.8 billion years previous , so the comportment of 13 billion - yr - sure-enough stars in our galaxy ’s lean disk means that the magnetic disc must have spring in the first billion years keep up the parentage of the existence — tug back our galaxy ’s star formation timeline in a huge way .
" These ancient stars in the saucer suggest that the constitution of the Milky Way ’s sparse magnetic disc began much earlier than antecedently believed , by about 4 - 5 billion year , " study leading authorSamir Nepal , a doctoral nominee studying the Milky Way at AIP , said in astatement .
This map highlights the different ages of stars surrounding our sun, marked orange. The blue stars are young and the red stars are ancient.
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Scientists are piecing together the history of the Milky Way with Gaia data to make maps that document the age , chemical physical composition and movement of its stars , according to the command . The Milky Way containsmore than 100 billionstars , so there ’s a portion to map .
For the new study , researchers looked at more than 800,000 stars in the solar neighborhood , which run about 3,200 light - year around the sun ; for comparability , the integral Milky Way is about 100,000 light - years widely . The team used machine learning to combine unlike data , giving measurements for variable like the age and metal depicted object of the star . This datum revealed that the bulk of these stars were old than 10 billion year old , and some were more than 13 billion years erstwhile .
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The star ' metal substance is also surprising . Ancient stars are usually very metal - pitiable because they formed when the universe was mostly hydrogen and helium . However , some of the ancient stars in the work were metal - productive , with twice the amount of metals compared to our untried , 4.6 - billion - year - old sun . These results indicate there was a speedy metal enrichment in the early stages of our galaxy , according to the statement .
" This study also play up that our galaxy had an vivid star formation at early epoch pass to very fast metal enrichment in the inner regions and the formation of the phonograph record , " Nepal say .
Gaia has uncovered many secrets about our Galax urceolata ’s history , includingpreviously unidentified mergerswith other galaxies , and remnants ofthe Milky Way ’s earliest construction blocks . The spacecraft in brief stopped devolve available datum after asmall meteoroid impactearlier this year , but is now back in working lodge and predicted to carry on its mission until the final stage of 2025 .
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