
Image by/from ESO, European Southern Observatory
HE 1219-0312 is an extremely metal-poor star in the constellation Virgo, The star is located at around 41,400 light years away from earth.
It is thought to be a second generation, Population II or metal-poor star ([Fe/H] = -2.96), The star was found in the sample of extremely metal-poor halo stars from the Hamburg/ESO Survey by W. Hayek and collaborators. The group's research was published in the July 2, 2009 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
If the age of the star HE 1219-0312 was confirmed at 17.6 billion years, that this star will be the oldest star in the universe.
The abundance of two strongly r-process enhanced in two metal-poor stars, BPS CS29491-0069 and HE 1219-0312 was detected by HERES project, which there was ([Fe/H] = -2.51, [r/Fe] = +1.1) and ([Fe/H] = -2.96, [r/Fe] = +1.5).
the analysis based on high-quality VLT/UVES spectra and MARCS model atmosphere was detected these eighteen heavy elements in the spectrum of HE 1219-0312 with an case of Th II 4019A line.
Radioactive dating for HE 1219-0312 with the observed thorium and rare-earth elements abundance pairs results in an average age of 9.5 billion years, when based on solar r-process residuals, that Age of the star HE 1219-0312 was 17.6 billion years, so, we puts the age of HE 1219-0312 into 13.6 billion years to avoid to exceed the universe's age.