London (EFE). Scientists in the United Kingdom have dated some of the oldest stars in our galaxy with unprecedented accuracy by combining data about the star’s oscillations with information about their chemical composition, according to the British journal Nature Astronomy.
The team, led by researchers from the University of Birmingham, evaluated a hundred red giant stars and were able to determine that some of them were originally part of a satellite galaxy called Gaia-Enceladus, which collided with the Milky Way early in its history.
The results revealed that the group of stars examined is similar in age or slightly younger than most stars known to have been born in the Milky Way.
This supports existing theories that the Milky Way did indeed begin forming a large portion of its stars when the Gaia-Enceladus fusion occurred.
At the time of collision, the Milky Way was already efficiently forming stars, most of which now reside inside its thick disk, one of the two disk-shaped structures that make up the galaxy.
The lead author of the research, Josefina Montalban, explained that “the chemical composition, position and movement of stars that we can observe today in the Milky Way contains valuable information about their origin.”
“As we learn more about how and when these stars form, we can begin to better understand how the fusion of Gaia-Enceladus with the Milky Way affected the evolution of our galaxy,” he added.
When performing the calculations, the team used data from the Kepler satellite along with data from Gaia and APOGEE.
All three were set up to collect data to help map and mark stars in the Milky Way. In work, the team used information about the individual patterns of oscillations for each star.
