An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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A star with an iron abundance [Fe/H] < -3 found in a → galactic halo. These stars, whose → metallicity is typically less than one thousandth of the solar value, are believed to have formed shortly after the → Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago. The number of such stars depends on the primordial → initial mass function. If the IMF were steep, there could, in principle, be a lot of EMPSs formed at high → redshifts. Thus many of them could have ended up in the halos of galaxies. See also → Population III star.

→ extreme; → metal; → poor; → star.