What did MIT researchers utilize from the European Space Agency's mission to pinpoint ancient stars near the Sun?
Answer
Precise positional, distance, and motion data from Gaia.
The recent breakthrough finding three ultra-ancient stars orbiting near the Sun relied heavily on data provided by the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission. Gaia is specifically designed to map billions of stars with unprecedented accuracy regarding their positions, distances, and movements (kinematics). This high-precision positional data was critical because it allowed the MIT researchers to accurately pin down the distances to these faint stars, separating them from closer, younger neighbors, which is essential for correctly modeling their orbital paths and confirming their antiquity.
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