Melbourne: Researchers have revealed that Archaeology of millions of stars may help in unraveling galaxies' evolution and formation.
Dr Gayandhi De Silva, from the University of Sydney's School of Physics, said that it was still not understood how the more than 100 billion galaxies in the universe formed and evolved, but now they were going back to the very beginning of the Milky Way and using the astronomical equivalent of fossils to understand how Earth's galaxy and those beyond it came about.
This could be done by contrast GALAH probes ten times further into the galaxy and it would be the first attempt to survey a million stars to create a dataset that will be used by astronomers worldwide for decades to come, he further added.
The GALAH survey is an international five-year project, led by Australia, involving 70 astronomers from 17 institutions in eight countries.
GALAH refers to Galactic Archaeology with HERMES. HERMES is the new 13 million dollars instrument on the Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory and can analyse light from up to 400 stars or galaxies at the same time. GALAH is the main purpose for which HERMES was built.
The scientists will use HERMES to measure up to 29 chemicals in the stars, as well as the stars' temperature, gravity and velocity to inform their understanding.
The study is published in the Royal Astronomical Society Journal.
