Survey profiles 350,000 stars in search for Sun’s siblings

This survey allows us to trace the ancestry of stars, showing astronomers how the Universe went from having only hydrogen and helium - just after the Big Bang - to being filled with all the elements we have here on Earth that are necessary for life. Astronomers from ANU, other Australian institutions and Europe have mapped the chemical profiles of 350,000 stars in the Milky Way that will help them find the lost siblings of our Sun that were separated after birth by our galaxy. The findings are from the first major public data release of the Galactic Archaeology survey, called GALAH, which was launched in late 2013 as part of a quest to uncover the formation and evolution of our galaxy. Professor Martin Asplund from ANU said GALAH, when complete, would help reveal the original star clusters of the Milky Way, including the Sun's birth cluster and solar siblings along with more than one million other stars. "This survey allows us to trace the ancestry of stars, showing astronomers how the Universe went from having only hydrogen and helium - just after the Big Bang - to being filled with all the elements we have here on Earth that are necessary for life," said Professor Asplund from the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) at ANU. Every star in the Sun's birth cluster will have the same chemical composition - this cluster was quickly pulled apart by our Milky Way Galaxy and scattered across the sky.