Astronomers Find Ancient Star Which Appears To Be Older Than The Universe

[SlyPokerDog]

Scientists have discovered an "impossible" star which appears to be older than the universe.

The mysterious star Methuselah appears to be between 14 and 15 billion years old - a bit of an issue considering the universe itself is known to have come into existence 13.8 billion years ago.

Oddly enough, Methuselah is even located inside our own galaxy - about 190 light years away.

And even after using new information about the star's distance from us, its brightness and its structure, scientists are unable to place an estimate of its age much below 14.5 billion years - still older than the universe.

Fortunately for the team from Pennsylvania State University and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, there appears to be a margin of error of about 800 million years, or so - enough to just barely place the star below the age of everything else, if peace of mind is important to you.

Formally known as HD 140283, the star is the oldest object currently known to astronomers.

It was first discovered a century ago, moving more than 800,000 mph relative to our solar system.

The star is on a long and looping orbit around the galaxy, and is only briefly passing through Earth's neighbourhood on the western spiral arm.

In the study published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, astronomers said the star was born in a 'dwarf galaxy' which was swallowed by the Milky Way more than 12 billion years ago.

Using new measurements the team was able to refine its estimate of the star's position, and learn more about its structure.

The study suggests that further research might bring the age of the star down even further.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03/08/astronomers-find-ancient-star-methuselah_n_2834999.html

 

[magnifier661]

Yes but here's the catch. It's in our galaxy; which is supposed to be fairly young.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

How do they tell the age of stars from that distance?

Stretch marks?

 

[Further]

14.5 billion plus/minus 800,000 years, so current estimates place it as young as 13.7 billion, 100,000 years after the Big Bang at 13.8 billion.

Interesting though. I think it's amazing they can even come close to dating something 190 light years away.

 

[Further]

How do they tell the age of stars from that distance?

Stretch marks?

I'm not sure, but some has to due with incandescence and part has to due with the hue or color. I'm sure someone else can answer better than me.

 

[crowTrobot]

Yes but here's the catch. It's in our galaxy; which is supposed to be fairly young.

There are young stars, but there isn't any such thing as a "young" galaxy. Galaxies were seeded and their initial generation of stars formed just after the big bang.

 

[Further]

There are young stars, but there isn't any such thing as a "young" galaxy. Galaxies were seeded and their initial generation of stars formed just after the big bang.

Cool. I didn't know that. I never really thought about it but that makes sense. Do you know how much time at a minimum a star formation takes?

 

[magnifier661]

There are young stars, but there isn't any such thing as a "young" galaxy. Galaxies were seeded and their initial generation of stars formed just after the big bang.

How you figure? I remember that galaxies were started from some tremendous energy coming from the center. That energy was measured to determine how old a galaxy was.

Correct me if I'm wrong, just what I remembered reading years ago.

 

[magnifier661]

http://news.discovery.com/space/astronomy/milky-way-age-120530.htm

This link explains the Milky Way is 11.4 billion years old.

Okay now I remember how they explain dating galaxies. It's measuring the halo. I understand that it is only a theory, but the halo measurement and this star age is contradicting.

 

[magnifier661]

In the study published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, astronomers said the star was born in a 'dwarf galaxy' which was swallowed by the Milky Way more than 12 billion years ago.

Okay I didn't catch that. So our galaxy swallowed this star; which may explain why the star is older than our galaxy.

 

[Denny Crane]

Cool. I didn't know that. I never really thought about it but that makes sense. Do you know how much time at a minimum a star formation takes?

Google WMAP.

The image they generated has dark areas that were where the galaxies formed.

 

[Further]

Google WMAP.

The image they generated has dark areas that were where the galaxies formed.

Thanks, reading about it now.

 

[Further]

WMAP - I have read bits and pieces in other articles, but there's some info I ha no idea about. In case anyone else is interested.

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Some highlights

WMAP's Top Ten

The WMAP science team has…
... has put the "precision" in "precision cosmology" by reducing the allowed volume of cosmological parameters by a factor in excess of 68,000. The three most highly cited physics and astronomy papers published in the new millennium are WMAP scientific papers--- reflecting WMAP's enormous impact.

…mapped the pattern of tiny fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation (the oldest light in the universe) and produced the first fine-resolution (0.2 degree) full-sky map of the microwave sky.

…determined the universe to be 13.77 billion years old to within a half percent.

…nailed down the curvature of space to within 0.4% of "flat" Euclidean.

…determined that ordinary atoms (also called baryons) make up only 4.6% of the universe.

…completed a census of the universe and finds that dark matter (matter not made up of atoms) is 24.0%

…determined that dark energy, in the form of a cosmological constant, makes up 71.4% of the universe, causing the expansion rate of the universe to speed up. - "Lingering doubts about the existence of dark energy and the composition of the universe dissolved when the WMAP satellite took the most detailed picture ever of the cosmic microwave background (CMB)." - Science Magazine 2003, "Breakthrough of the Year" article
… mapped the polarization of the microwave radiation over the full sky and discovered that the universe was reionized earlier than previously believed. - "WMAP scores on large-scale structure. By measuring the polarization in the CMB it is possible to look at the amplitude of the fluctuations of density in the universe that produced the first galaxies. That is a real breakthrough in our understanding of the origin of structure." - ScienceWatch: "What's Hot in Physics", Simon Mitton, Mar./Apr. 2008.
…detected that the amplitude of the variations in the density of the universe on big scales is slightly larger than smaller scales. This, along with other results, supports "inflation", the idea is that the universe underwent a dramatic period of expansion, growing by more than a trillion trillion fold in less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second. Tiny fluctuations were generated during this expansion that eventually grew to form galaxies.

… determined that the distribution of these fluctuations follows a bell curve with the same properties across the sky, and that there are equal numbers of hot and cold spots in the map. The simplest version of the inflation idea predicted these properties and remarkably, WMAP’s precision measurement of the properties of the fluctuations has confirmed these predictions, in detail.

 

[julius]

That's one crazy weather radar map

 

[SlyPokerDog]

That's one crazy weather radar map

80% chance of alien.

 

[e_blazer]

So they named this star that seems to be way older than it should be "Methuselah"? I think I would have gone with "Greg Oden", but that's probably just being mean.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

So they named this star that seems to be way older than it should be "Methuselah"? I think I would have gone with "Greg Oden", but that's probably just being mean.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

 

[jlprk]

The original article makes no sense.

The mysterious star Methuselah appears to be between 14 and 15 billion years old - a bit of an issue considering the universe itself is known to have come into existence 13.8 billion years ago.

Oddly enough, Methuselah is even located inside our own galaxy - about 190 light years away.

And even after using new information about the star's distance from us, its brightness and its structure, scientists are unable to place an estimate of its age much below 14.5 billion years - still older than the universe.

Fortunately for the team from Pennsylvania State University and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, there appears to be a margin of error of about 800 million years, or so

Maximum 15 minus .8 > the claimed minimum estimate, 14.5.
Minimum 14 minus .8 < the Universe's age, 13.8, so the star can be younger than the Universe.

 

[Eastoff]

Yeah, the headline is misleading. Everyone has margins of Error, and it just so happens their margins of error leave the possibility to still be an appropriate age. Nothing revolutionary, but it would be SUPER old nonetheless.

 

[magnifier661]

Yeah, the headline is misleading. Everyone has margins of Error, and it just so happens their margins of error leave the possibility to still be an appropriate age. Nothing revolutionary, but it would be SUPER old nonetheless.

Or could it be that maybe the science has it wrong? It's not hard to imagine, and it doesn't mean it's 100% wrong; but maybe the universe isn't that old? Maybe it's older? Could it be that the size of the universe maybe larger?

I think its pretty arrogant for the scientific community to believe they have it right, when science itself is used to disprove.

 

[BlazerWookee]

"known to have come into existence" lol...

 

[Further]

Or could it be that maybe the science has it wrong? It's not hard to imagine, and it doesn't mean it's 100% wrong; but maybe the universe isn't that old? Maybe it's older? Could it be that the size of the universe maybe larger?

I think its pretty arrogant for the scientific community to believe they have it right, when science itself is used to disprove.

Science figures out the best possible answer with the available information. And then as more and more corroborating evidence matches the original hypothesis the more confident we become in the hypothesis. But as soon as new evidence reputes the hypothesis, then we need to figure out which is wrong, the new evidence or the original hypothesis. The scientific community isn't being arrogant, they are simply stating the most likely answer according to all the information we have at the moment. New info changes things, which is why this star was so fascinating until it was realized that the age of the universe is within the margin of error of the age of the star. It's based on math, based on physics, not based on ego, so it's not arrogant.

 

[magnifier661]

Science figures out the best possible answer with the available information. And then as more and more corroborating evidence matches the original hypothesis the more confident we become in the hypothesis. But as soon as new evidence reputes the hypothesis, then we need to figure out which is wrong, the new evidence or the original hypothesis. The scientific community isn't being arrogant, they are simply stating the most likely answer according to all the information we have at the moment. New info changes things, which is why this star was so fascinating until it was realized that the age of the universe is within the margin of error of the age of the star. It's based on math, based on physics, not based on ego, so it's not arrogant.

As I agree with most of your statement; the arrogance is of those that take this evidence and talk about it like its fact. The ones doing research would probably tell you that there are errors, like any true scientific study. I'm calling out those that use information like this without using your disclaimer.

 

[Eastoff]

Science figures out the best possible answer with the available information. And then as more and more corroborating evidence matches the original hypothesis the more confident we become in the hypothesis. But as soon as new evidence reputes the hypothesis, then we need to figure out which is wrong, the new evidence or the original hypothesis. The scientific community isn't being arrogant, they are simply stating the most likely answer according to all the information we have at the moment. New info changes things, which is why this star was so fascinating until it was realized that the age of the universe is within the margin of error of the age of the star. It's based on math, based on physics, not based on ego, so it's not arrogant.

This. It's not "arrogant" it's just like saying "Hey Mags, I think you were born about 40 years ago, plus or minus 5 years." Now if we know you were actually born say 37 years ago, and that margin of error still works out. That doesn't mean anything other than, my original guess was too high.

 

[magnifier661]

This. It's not "arrogant" it's just like saying "Hey Mags, I think you were born about 40 years ago, plus or minus 5 years." Now if we know you were actually born say 37 years ago, and that margin of error still works out. That doesn't mean anything other than, my original guess was too high.

Yes, but I'm not talking about the margin of error. I'm talking about just how vast the universe is. It could be that the universe is much larger than we are led to believe. Regardless, I'm not talking about those that is documenting research. I'm talking about those that take this evidence and run with it.

 

[Eastoff]

Yes, but I'm not talking about the margin of error. I'm talking about just how vast the universe is. It could be that the universe is much larger than we are led to believe. Regardless, I'm not talking about those that is documenting research. I'm talking about those that take this evidence and run with it.

Ah okay, I misunderstood. For the record, the standard view (as far as i know) for the size of the universe is finite, but expanding at near lightspeed. So the size is always getting bigger.

 

[magnifier661]

Ah okay, I misunderstood. For the record, the standard view (as far as i know) for the size of the universe is finite, but expanding at near lightspeed. So the size is always getting bigger.

Oops, you are right. I should have said "total mass of the universe". My mistake.

 

[Further]

There are going to be people in all walks of life who overstate things. I think many religious are far more arrogant in general because there are a ton of facts that contradict some of their beliefs, but they believe it anyway. That's far more arrogant than someone of science who believes something to be true just because some facts support the theory and there are no facts to repute it.

 

[magnifier661]

There are going to be people in all walks of life who overstate things. I think many religious are far more arrogant in general because there are a ton of facts that contradict some of their beliefs, but they believe it anyway. That's far more arrogant than someone of science who believes something to be true just because some facts support the theory and there are no facts to repute it.

I absolutely agree that many theists act in arrogance. The difference between the two is science is like law; its supposed to be unbiased without prejudice. Most religions are based on faith. Most don't require pHd's in order to teach the teachings of their faith. I hold science to a greater bar than one lead by theism. It would be dangerous if someone in science explained 2+2 = 10; then years later they must reprogram the flock with the new, right answer.

 

[Denny Crane]

There are going to be people in all walks of life who overstate things. I think many religious are far more arrogant in general because there are a ton of facts that contradict some of their beliefs, but they believe it anyway. That's far more arrogant than someone of science who believes something to be true just because some facts support the theory and there are no facts to repute it.

Yeah, that opening post article is full of arrogance. It uses words like "appears to be," "estimate," and "margin of error."