Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have discovered a second-generation star, whose chemical composition suggests that the Big Bang explosion might not have been really big at all.

The distant star, named SMSS J031300.36-670839., was discovered by MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research led by assistant professor Anna Frebel. Using the data collected by the SkyMapper telescope which monitors the stars, asteroids, and planets, from the Southern sky.

The distant star is located on the Milky Way galaxy and was detected to have the characteristics of a second-generation star. The researchers proceeded to use the Magellan Telescopes in Chile to make a closer look on it. They found that this distant star has 10 million times less than the iron content of our own Sun. The Sun, on the other hand, has the lowest iron content ever detected in any existing star.

They also discovered that the distant star has more carbon, about a thousand times, more than iron. This difference in the carbon and iron content of the newly discovered star challenges the traditional way that scientists have viewed the early years of the universe.

"One very central question for all of us is, 'How did the first stars and galaxies get started?'", Frebel said in a press release.

"This star had lower-than-expected explosion energy, and also lower than today's regular supernovae, which was really an unexpected finding. That tells us that, to some extent, we have to go back to the drawing board, because there is more variety amongst this very first generation of stars than we have assumed so far.", she added.

Frebel suggests that this distant star may have been formed under low energy instead of the explosive energy. The energy was not strong enough to free the chemicals like iron from its inner layers thus creating a gas cloud rich in carbon but low in iron.

This study was published in the Feb. 9 issue of Nature.