According to Knowridge, researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden reached this result after they developed a more accurate method to measure the chemical composition of the sun.
The importance of the discovery lies in the fact that the Sun is used as a basic reference for studying other stars. Therefore, knowing their precise composition helps astronomers compare stars and understand how elements, planets, and galaxies formed over billions of years.
Despite the Sun’s enormous size, it consists almost entirely of hydrogen and helium. Heavier elements, such as carbon, iron, oxygen, and silver, constitute only about 1.5 percent of its mass.
But this small percentage holds important information about the history of the universe.
The study was led by Sima Çalışkan during her doctoral studies at Uppsala University. To measure the amount of silver in the sun, the team used spectroscopy technology, which relies on studying the light emanating from the sun.
When light passes through the Sun’s outer atmosphere, atoms absorb specific wavelengths, leaving dark lines in the spectrum. Each chemical element leaves a special pattern of these lines, like a unique fingerprint, which allows scientists to identify the elements present and estimate their quantities.
Previous studies relied on simplified models of the sun’s atmosphere. The new study used a more realistic computer model that takes into account the complex changes in the sun’s outer layers.
The study also included more precise calculations of the way silver atoms interact with light and surrounding particles.
What is noteworthy is that the new model takes into account the effect of sunlight itself on the behavior of the silver atoms that produce the spectral lines, which gave researchers a more accurate measurement than before.
The new result helped solve a problem that had puzzled scientists for years. The amount of silver measured in the Sun was much less than the amount found in some of the oldest meteorites within the solar system.
This was strange, because the Sun and these ancient meteorites formed from the same cloud of gas and dust about 4.6 billion years ago, which means their chemical composition was supposed to be very similar.
But after new calculations, the abundance of silver in the Sun has become closer to the values found in those primitive meteorites, eliminating this discrepancy.
The researchers believe that the new method is not useful in studying the sun alone, but can also be used to examine other stars of different ages and types.
By measuring silver and other elements in stars, scientists hope to understand where and how these elements were formed during stellar evolution and massive explosions such as supernovae, and how they spread within the Milky Way over time.
The discovery is not only about silver, but rather about a new way to read the history of elements in the universe through sunlight.
