Chinese and Japanese astronomer have found a star in the Milky Way that is likely dissimilar from all others found in the galaxy . It is so funny that they believe it did n’t form there at all and instead was probably stolen from one of the companions of the Milky Way .
The sensation , have sex as J112456.61 + 453531.3 ( J1124 + 4535 for scant ) , was fleck by the Large Sky Area Multi - Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope ( LAMOST ) follow for its unusual interpersonal chemistry . Preliminary analytic thinking showed that the star has a depressed teemingness of certain elements such as magnesium , which is rare for whiz in the Milky Way .
The squad execute come after - up observation on the physical object using the High Dispersion Spectrograph on the Subaru Telescope . By looking at the light from the star in detail , researchers can image out its chemical substance composition . The team was able to reassert that this champion is indeed broken in Mg , but it is also surprisingly high in europium , one of the least abundant elements in the world . It is so rarified that for every metric ton of topic in the population , there are only 500 micrograms of europium .
This specific proportion of elements has never been observed before in a maven in the Milky Way . It is also uncommon in cosmic terms – such stars have only been found in nanus coltsfoot around the Milky Way , such as the Ursa Minor dwarf and the Sculptor nanus . The investigator of the study , write inNature Astronomy , hint it might have formed in a now - vanished midget galaxy cannibalized by the Milky Way a long time ago .
Over the many billions of year that our extragalactic nebula has existed , it has absorbed several neighboring galaxies . We can still see some leftovers from an ancient nanus galaxy in the so - calledSagittarius Stream , a ribbon of stars that wrap around the Milky Way .
This star belongs to the annulus of the Milky Way , the diffuse globose region that circumvent the disc of the galaxy . J1124 + 4535 comes as tight as 11,000 light - years from the core of the Milky Way in its orbit and as far as 42,000 loose - yr .
