extremely metal-poor star (EMPS) ستارهی ِ اُستومانه کمفلز stâre-ye ostomâné kamfelez Fr.: étoile extrêmement pauvre en métaux 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. See also: → extreme; → metal;
→ poor; → star. | 