The ancient star's chemical signature gives an impression that it has incorporated the blasted material in space by way of the supernova explosion. The phenomenon is believed to have caused the death of the universe's huge star in the early times which is presumed to be 200 times bigger than the sun.
Population III stars, which are the first stars found in the cosmos, were formed out of helium and hydrogen, the dominant gases of the early universe. Additional elements were then added to these stars through nuclear fusion. When these stars reached their end, their contained elements were scattered into the surrounding space by the supernovas. Eventually, the scattered material was incorporated into the future generation of stars.
"The impact of very massive stars and their explosions on subsequent star formation and galaxy formation should be significant," said Wako Aoki of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.
Together with a team of scientists, Aoki used the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii in making several observations of a huge sample of low mass stars. These low mass stars contain low quantities of non hydrogen and non helium elements otherwise known as "metals," a term suggested by astronomers. In their observation, they have successfully identified the ancient star SDS J0018-0939 and have noted that the star is only 1,000 light years away from Earth.
"Our discovery provides the very first evidence, or signature, for the existence of such very massive stars," said Aoki. "And very massive stars have a very large impact on star formation, galaxy formation in the early universe, so their existence is very essential in studying the early universe."
The larger the star is, the shorter is its life. Astronomers think that some of the population III stars must have appeared like huge-hundreds of solar masses. Since these giant stars were formed out of large clouds of slowly disappearing gas, they contain all the energy needed which had enabled them to reshape their surroundings by forming early star clusters and galaxies and causing a long-standing cosmic fog to be burned away.
SDS J0018-0939 is a small orange star which stood out in the study. The star had low levels of cobalt, magnesium, and carbon which are all considered "metals" by astronomers. Interestingly, the star has a high level of iron. This finding made the scientists more intrigued.
"The low abundance of heavy elements suggests that this star is quite old - as old as 13 billion years," said Aoki.
Volker Bromm of the University of Texas agrees with Aoki's statement and says that the SDS J0018-0939 has likely evolved from the material that came from a single star, something that is supposed to be over 200 times as huge as the sun.
The study is published in the journal Science.
