Josef Szylar🌌 A star from the cosmic dawn! In dwarf galaxy Pictor II, astronomers found PicII-503 – one of the most chemically primitive stars ever. Less than 1/40,000th of the Sun's iron, carbon-to-iron ratio 1,500× solar. A "second-generation" star preserving traces of the very first stellar explosions. Published in Nature Astronomy.
📅 Mar 16, 2026
🔗 https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2607/
Extremely Rare Second-Generation Star Discovered Inside Ancient Relic Dwarf Galaxy - The star is the first unambiguous example of chemical enrichment by the first stars in the Universe within a primordial environment
Discovered in the Pictor II dwarf galaxy, star PicII-503 has an extreme deficiency in iron — less than 1/40,000th of the Sun. This signature makes it the clearest example of a star within a primordial system that preserves the chemical enrichment of the Universe’s first stars. PicII-503 also has an extreme overabundance of carbon, providing the missing link to connect carbon-enhanced stars observed in the Milky Way halo to an origin in ancient dwarf galaxies.