Astronomers found the ancient “heart” of our galaxy

The Milky Way is about 13.6 billion years old. It is difficult to look into such a distant past, but astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy have tried. And they managed to find the ancient “heart” of our galaxy. This is a group of 18,000 stars, which was its primary basis. To do this, the researchers had to make a three-dimensional galactic map and with the help of a neural network to analyze the chemical composition of about 2 million stars.

Astronomers proceeded from the fact that the stars that appeared at the same time have similar parameters and chemical composition. The key characteristic for them was the degree of metallization of the spectrum of stars, showing their metal content. In this case, large concentrations of heavy metals are characteristic of relatively “young” stars. The first stars that formed our galaxy were composed of lighter matter. Astronomers called them “poor old hearts” because the amount of metals in them was noticeably lower than average.

Researchers report that the age of the “galactic heart” stars is 12.5 billion years. They believe that studying this group of protostars can shed light on the history of our galaxy’s formation and evolution over time. By studying them with modern approaches and technology, it will be possible to get answers to questions that have long worried astronomers.