Immortal stars near Galactic Centre could be feeding on dark matter, research reveals

Stars near the Galactic Center, also known as theS-cluster stars, are feeding on the dark matter, granting them cosmic immortality, revealed research.

Stars need fuel to survive, once they run out of this fuel they collapse due to their gravity and form a white dwarf, a black hole or a neutron star which are cosmic remnants.

According to scientists, the sun, which is also a star, will encounter this fate and die in about 5 billion years. Itis expected to swell up as a red giant and wipe out the inner planets. This phase will also finish after around a billion years, leaving the sun's core as a white dwarf ember encircled by a cloud of cosmic ashes in the form of cooling star material.

"The stars closest to the Galactic Center, the so-called 'S-cluster stars,' are very puzzling. They show a series of properties that are not found anywhere else: It is not clear how they got so close to the centre, where the environment is thought to be rather hostile to star formation." Isabelle John, research team leader of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology told Space.com.

The stars present at the heart of the galaxy appear to have unusual features. Some appear younger than they are, while a few are older than expected and quite a few stars are heavy. Scientists believe that the reason behind this is that these stars gather huge amounts of dark matter which provides them with a new kind of fuel to function.

Many of the peculiar characteristics of the S-cluster stars can be simultaneously explained by "the idea of immortal stars". An explanation for the extraordinarily high abundance of young stars near the Galactic Centre is that the stars there become immortal due to the high density of dark matter.

Could the Sun become immortal?

The sun is also a star, however, according to researchers, it cannot become immortal as it is quite far from the Galactic Centre and won't be able to accumulate sufficient dark matter to stay immortal.

Studying immortal stars poses a new realm of opportunities for scientists to research more about the mysterious dark matter and its interactions with ordinary matter.

(With inputs from agencies)