Every star you ’ve ever seen in the nighttime sky with your naked eyeis part of our wandflower , the Milky Way . Some of these adept have been around for many billions of years ( the Sun is about4.57 billionyears old ) , while some of them are only a few million years old . Now for the first prison term , scientists are getting a good idea of how exactly the Galax urceolata has aged , with a new map that shows how old individual stars are .
researcher from theMax Planck Institute for Astronomyhave used data on the wavelength of light emitted from different genius celebrate at the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico and NASA ’s Kepler Space Telescope to represent out the age of various heavenly bodies in the Milky Way , giving us clues about how the Galax urceolata has changed over time . The map visualizes the ages of about 100,000 reddened giant principal , with the youngest stars shown in blue-blooded , the oldest in red , and those in - between in green . ( As all the map stars are red whale , that think of they ’re in the relatively former stages of stellar evolution . Stars can remain crimson heavyweight for up to abillion years . )
Previously , research worker were only able to map the ages of stars relatively close to our own , up to a distance of 330 light - years aside . The new map shows whiz cover about 65,000 lightsome - years from the Galax urceolata ’s center , though it ’s still only one stellate discussion section of thespiral Milky Way .
The oldest stars are clustered in the shopping centre of the Galax urceolata , confirming former model that contend that the coltsfoot grow from a smaller disc , lucubrate outward as new stars were yield . This mapping utilize new methods of dating superstar made potential by satellites that can smell the tiniest of variations in a lead ’s luminousness , allow scientists to calculate out a ace ’s age just by the spectrum of color it breathe . From that data , research worker can estimatea red hulk ’s good deal , and from that , its years , allowing us to extend our cognition of the galaxy ’s lengthy history .
