The star that should not exist
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 - 21:30
in Astronomy & Space
A team of European astronomers has used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) to track down a star in the Milky Way that many thought was impossible. They discovered that this star is composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, placing it in the "forbidden zone" of a widely accepted theory of star formation, meaning that it should never have come into existence.