The Oldest Stars in the Universe

Believe it or not, but I hope you do, the lifetime of stars with masses less than that of the Sun is similar to that of the current age of the universe. That means that such stars born at early times should still be around today. (This does NOT mean that all stars with mass less than the Sun's were born at these early times.) Do you we expect any such stars in the Milky Way? Yes. Astronomers currently believe that the Milky Way formed from the merger of several smaller galaxies which should have been full of such stars. Is there anyway of identifying them? Yes. Since elements heavier than Lithium or only produced by stars, old stars should have a smaller percentage of such metals than younger ones because the material they were formed out of had fewer such metals. Do we know of many such stars? No. Why am I rambling about this? Well, astronomers might have finally found many of these missing low-metal, low-mass stars. Go here to read more. Enjoy!