Anna Frebel and her team discover the oldest star of our universe yet known !

Interview with Anna Frebel by Gerhard Huber
This star, SM0313, formed within the second generation of stars in the universe, soon after the very first stars exploded. We determined its chemical abundances of this stars to find out from what kind of gas cloud this object formed. The abundances are so low that only one first star could have provided the elements to the cloud when it exploded as one of the first ever massive supernova.
Using the stellar chemical abundances is the best and most exciting way to reconstruct the nature and properties of the short-lived elusive first stars and their explosions.
Read the original publication:
"A single low-energy, iron-poor supernova as the source of metals in the star SMSSJ031300.36-670839.3" by Keller, Bessell, Frebel, et al. 2014, published in Nature 507 (Febuary 13 issue). This is work done by MIT astronomers Anna Frebel and Dr. Heather Jacobson in collaboration with astronomers around Stefan Keller from Mt. Stromlo Observatory of the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.
arxiv.org/abs/1402.1517
Anna Frebel: Professor for Astrophysics at MIT, USA; Astronomer & stellar archaeologist searching for the oldest stars in the universe and author.
© Gerhard Huber, www.gerhardhuber.at/
www.alltage.at, / alltage

[@trungac2414]

thanks

[@ErnestMSaenz]

This star is older than HD 140283?

[@RyanMcAndrews]

what is the current generation of stars? third or fourth? Will later generations of stars birth more complex elements?

[@Afrebel]

by now there have been 13 billion years of stellar generations. stars that are being formed now had many many progenitors. the making of the elements is set by nuclear physics and has been the same since the Big Bang.

[@RyanMcAndrews]

Anna Frebel do you think it will be found that the stellar generations were like the geological eras on earth? It seems as if the types of stars and concentrations of elements influences planets, and possibly entire galaxies.

[@MrThepatrickshow]

This past week they claim to have found a rocky planet orbiting a star which comes from a generation that predates the abundant formation of heavy metals. Does this mean the story is wrong? Or could this planet possibly have formed much later, in some random space, and been captured by this ancient star before it died???

[@vagabond040]

Isn't the new born Star after the Supernova called a Neutron Star?

[@folkpuusa6077]

Not always. Many different outcome depending what the mass of the star was prior to its collapse.