BD+17°3248 is an old Population II star located at a distance of roughly 968 light-years (297 parsecs) in the Galactic Halo.
The Hubble Space Telescope was used to observe the ultraviolet part of the stellar spectra.
This allowed the measurement of platinum, osmium and, for the first time outside of the Solar System, gold.
[5] The University of Mainz and University of Basel groups of Karl-Ludwig Kratz and Friedrich-Karl Thielemann performed a comparison between the observed abundances for the stable element europium (Z=63) and the radioactive elements thorium (Z=90) and uranium (Z=92) to the calculated abundances of an r-process in a Type II supernova explosion.
A similar age was derived for another ultra-metal-poor star (CS31082-001) from thorium to uranium ratios.