Scientists Discover "Poor Old Heart" Of The Milky Way Galaxy
NDTV
Scientists have found a cluster of 18,000 stars that are from the primordial universe, shortly after the Big Bang took place.
Scientists have discovered an ancient galactic core at the centre of the Milky Way, which they are calling as the heart of our galaxy. The cluster of 18,000 stars is from our galaxy's infancy, the researchers said in the study, which has been published The Astrophysical Journal. The researchers used cutting-edge technology, including the most accurate three-dimensional map of the Milky Way ever compiled and neural network that analysed around two million stars. Previous studies had pointed towards this, but it is the first time that scientists have so emphatically announced the discovery of remnants of the past.
The 18,000 stars are from a time when the Milky Way was just a compact collection of proto-galaxies coming together to form a bigger thing.
"But our results significantly flesh out the existing picture by showing that there is indeed a tightly bound in situ 'iceberg,' whose tips have been recognised before," said the team led by astronomer Hans-Walter Rix of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.
Mr Rix and his colleagues termed these stars as "poor old heart" of the Milky Way.