The age of the star is more than 10 billion years.
Scientists using the VISTA telescope has discovered an ancient “star RR Lyrae” in the center of the milky Way. Detection of stars, whose age is more than 10 billion years suggests that the galactic bulge, a spherical stellar cloud in the Central area of the milky Way probably formed by the merging of ancient star clusters.
The stars may be the remnants of one of the oldest star clusters of the milky Way, reported on the website of the European southern Observatory.
The center of the milky Way as the Central region of other galaxies, has a very high density of the stellar population. Current opening in our galaxy, stars, RR Lyrae is the most important certificate, which allows astronomers to make a choice between two alternative theories of the formation of the so-called Balga.
Usually the stars of the RR Lyrae found in dense globular clusters. These are variable stars whose brightness varies periodically according to a certain law. Observing the duration of these cycles of variability in comparison with the brightness of stars, astronomers can calculate the distance to it.
However, the observation of such stars are often hampered by neighborhood brighter young stars, and in some areas they are hidden dust masses. For this reason, to detect stars RR Lyrae in the extremely densely populated Central regions of the milky Way was impossible. Now researchers have identified about a dozen stars RR Lyrae.
This discovery indicates the existence of the center bulge of the milky Way remains of an ancient globular clusters.
