Researchers at the University of Victoria are among the first in history to find traces of the first stars in the universe.

Kim Venn, UVic astronomer and director of the Astronomy Research Centre, co-led an international team that found evidence of these post-Big Bang stars in a cluster with the lowest concentration of metals ever observed.

Using the European Space Agencysa国际传媒檚 satellite mission Gaia, Vennsa国际传媒檚 team examined a cluster called C19 in the outer reaches of the Milky Way galaxy. The extremely metal-poor stars appeared to share an orbit in the galactic halo. After studying them using spectroscopy sa国际传媒� the study of how matter absorbs and emits light sa国际传媒� they determined theysa国际传媒檇 found what are believed to be traces of first stars.

sa国际传媒淲hat an amazing thing, isnsa国际传媒檛 it? Stars that we will never be able to go and touch, that wesa国际传媒檒l never be able to send a robot to grab a piece of that atmosphere, and yet we can still figure out their composition from these rainbows, from these spectra,sa国际传媒� Venn said in an interview on uvic.ca.

Her team is already investigating another stellar cluster and is working on installing a new high-resolution spectrograph in Gemini South observatory in Chile. Thatsa国际传媒檒l allow the team to search for similar stellar streams from the Southern Hemisphere.

New projects will come out of this discovery, like one in which UVic cosmologist Julio Navarro is participating. He has started working with an international team on a project to model the origins of C19 and determine what it could mean for how we understand dark matter.

sa国际传媒淚n astronomy, we often say when it comes to objects theresa国际传媒檚 zero, one, or many,sa国际传媒� Venn said. sa国际传媒淪o far all wesa国际传媒檝e done is gone from zero to one. Now that we know what to look for and how to find them, we want to find more.sa国际传媒�

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