It is the oldest fossil yet found, by quite some margin: a star born just after the dawn of time.
Anna Frebel of the University of Texas at Austin and colleagues used a technique similar to radioactive carbon dating in archaeology to calculate the age of the star HE 1523-0901, on the outskirts of the Milky Way. “This is tricky because it’s rare to find stars with enough radioactive material,” says Frebel.
Using the Very Large Telescope in Chile, the team measured the amount of six radioactive elements in the star. Then, using estimates of the amounts of these elements…
