Article by, Adrian Vatchinsky
How curious would it be to find a star which shows signs of great aging and yet also appears relatively young? The star, cleverly called SDSS J102915+172927, is a curious case discovered by Lorenzo Monaco of the European Southern Observatory in Chile, which shows both signs of old age and youth at the same time.
The low concentrations of elements heavier than Helium within the star are signs that the star is relatively young. As a brisk refresher, a star can be grossly oversimplified as a sphere of hot gas held in balance by a delicate tug of war battle between gravity and pressure forces. Nuclear Fusion is the process which powers the great engines of stars, and in simplest terms the process involves taking two light elements and combining them to create a heavier element.
As such young stars start out as gas balls filled mainly with hydrogen and helium - the most abundant elements in the universe - and through the process of nuclear fusion they great heavier and heavier elements within their cores until the "fuel" can no longer efficiently run undergo the process.
The low concentration of chemical elements heavier than hydrogen and helium suggests it is the most primitive star ever discovered, yet the exact ratio of these heavier elements suggests it is much younger.
Possible explanations include the cooling of the star nursery. If the star was cooled by interstellar dust or some other means that could explain the odd ratios of elements yet youthful star.
Hopefully now that the southern hemisphere sky is starting to open up as scientists construct more and more observatories in the region we will be able to find out many more interesting cases such as SDSS J102915+172927.
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