New research into the chemical composition of stars could identify our Sun's long lost family and begin to unravel the complex history of our galaxy.
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Our Sun was born in an open cluster some 4.6 billion years ago, growing alongside its sibling stars like grapes on a vine, theorists say. Meteorites hold evidence for this close companionship in that they contain traces of the radioactive decay of the isotope Iron-60 which is only produced when a large star explodes in a supernova.
The VLT data obtained by De Silva has now confirmed the stars in each open cluster have their own distinctive "flavor."