Astronomers have discovered the farthest group of stars from Earth that has been observed so far within the boundaries of the Milky Way galaxy, in the stellar halo on its outer borders, about halfway to a neighboring galaxy.
The researchers said that these 208 stars reside in the outermost regions of the outer halo, which is a spherical cloud of stars dominated by the mysterious, invisible substance that scientists call dark matter, whose existence is only known through the influence of its gravity.
The most distant of these stars is located at a distance of 1.08 million light-years from Earth. One light year is the distance that light travels in a full year, equal to 9.5 trillion kilometers.
These stars were observed using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, and they belong to the class of stars called (RR laray), which have a relatively low mass and are characterized by a lack of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. The mass of the outermost star is about 70 percent of that of the Sun.