Strange 'Methuselah' Star Looks Older Than the Universe (2024)

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Strange 'Methuselah' Star Looks Older Than the Universe? ›

The Universe is precisely dated at 13.8 billion years old, but astronomers claim the Methuselah star is 14.5 billion years old.

One study suggested that the “Methuselah Star” is older than the Universe itself. The Universe is thought to be 13.797 billion years old, with an uncertainty of ±0.023 billion years. In 2013, a measurement of the “Methuselah Star” suggested that it is 14.45 billion years old — older than the age of the Universe.

Our sun is about 4.5 billion years old. Since HD 140283 is a Population II star, it is older. In fact, it is the oldest star with a well-determined age. Because of this, astronomers colloquially call the star “the Methuselah star.” Initial estimates of its age were in excess of 14 billion years.

The curious star is located some 190 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Libra and it rapidly journeys across the sky at 800,000 mph (1.3 million kilometers per hour). Fast facts: – Methuselah covers the width of the moon in the night sky every 1,500 years.

HD 140283 (also known as the Methuselah star) is a metal-poor subgiant star about 200 light years away from the Earth in the constellation Libra, near the boundary with Ophiuchus in the Milky Way Galaxy. Its apparent magnitude is 7.205, so it can be seen with binoculars.

Methuselah is believed to be the oldest star in the entire known universe, having formed over 14 billion years ago. Its age makes it older than the universe itself. Another mystery added to the list of those involving our universe. The subgiant is definitely old.

If the findings of this latest research prove accurate, the Big Bang may have taken place 26.7 billion years ago, making the actual age of the universe nearly twice as old as we thought.

The biggest single entity that scientists have identified in the universe is a supercluster of galaxies called the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall. It's so wide that light takes about 10 billion years to move across the entire structure. For perspective, the universe is only 13.8 billion years old.

How old is the oldest known planet? Almost as old as the universe, it turns out. At 12.7 billion years old, planet Psr B1620-26 B is almost three times the age of Earth, which formed some 4.5 billion years ago.

The rarest natural occurring material in the known universe is a substance called astatine . Astatine is a radioactive element with an extremely short half - life , making it difficult to study and even harder to find in nature .

What was the first thing before the universe? ›

“Inflation tells us that the period of time before the Big Bang was extremely cold, almost at absolute zero, and it was empty of everything but empty space, and that empty space carried energy that stretched the universe out to this enormous size and into the initial state before the Big Bang.

The first long-lived matter particles of any kind were protons and neutrons, which together make up the atomic nucleus. These came into existence around one ten-thousandth of a second after the Big Bang. Before that point, there was really no material in any familiar sense of the word.

The Universe is precisely dated at 13.8 billion years old, but astronomers claim the Methuselah star is 14.5 billion years old.

Why are these galaxies older than the universe? Did they exist before the Big Bang? These galaxies were spotted when the universe was a mere 500 to 700 million years old, a time when it was just 3 percent of its current age.

There were no stars, and there were no galaxies. After the Big Bang, the universe was like a hot soup of particles (i.e. protons, neutrons, and electrons). When the universe started cooling, the protons and neutrons began combining into ionized atoms of hydrogen and deuterium. Deuterium further fused into helium-4.

The so-called Methuselah star, for example, may be highly unusual in a lot of ways, as it must be in order for us to arrive at an estimated age of approximately 14.5 billion years old: some 700 million years older than the age of the Universe.

GRB 090423 was also the oldest known object in the Universe, apart from the Methuselah star.

The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old but its exact age is not yet clear. What we do know is that it's likely less than 14 billion years old. Research from various missions has yielded slightly different estimates.