We’ve found the oldest star in the known universe – and it’s right on our galactic doorstep

I don't buy this at all. Seriously, how do they determine the exact age of a star? Now, even if they could do that, are they trying to make us believe that they have put an age on every single star in the known universe? No way that can be true.

reply to post by RationalDespair


I personally don't know how they determine a Stars age in our years but Scientific American describes the process as below.

"Astronomers usually cannot tell the age of an individual star. There are certain stars that we know are very young, and others that are very old, but for most stars we cannot tell. When we have a large group of stars, however, we can tell its age. This is possible because all of the stars in a cluster are presumed to have begun their life at approximately the same time. After a relatively brief time (in 'star time,' that is--we are talking thousands to millions of years here) stars reach the adult phase of their life, which we call the main sequence phase. The length of time a star spends in the main sequence phase depends on its mass."

There is more info contained within the link.

www.scientificamerican.com...

andy06shake
"This is possible because all of the stars in a cluster are presumed to have begun their life at approximately the same time. "
www.scientificamerican.com...

Oh, that word... presumed...

pre·sume verb pri-ˈzüm
: to think that (something) is true without knowing that it is true

Can't argue with that science!

andy06shake
"Astronomers usually cannot tell the age of an individual star. There are certain stars that we know are very young, and others that are very old, but for most stars we cannot tell."
www.scientificamerican.com...

But for most stars we cannot tell... So how can one make the claim they found the "oldest star in the known universe" if they don't know the age of most stars?

Right.

reply to post by WeAre0ne


Buddy I just found the article interesting. All any science is in the end is a theory generally accompanied by supporting evidence which essentially amounts to a best guess.

reply to post by spleenika

Something is not adding up for me here.

EXACTLY...but no doubt someone will be along soon to EXPLAIN it to us mere mortals

reply to post by andy06shake


meh. looks like swamp gas. and it's been photoshopoped a fair bit.

reply to post by andy06shake

Buddy I just found the article interesting

andy...please chill...no ones having a go at you...I've always had a bit of difficulty with the physics of astronomy. But I'm glad some others here are questioning the logic. (again not directed at you)

soficrow
reply to post by andy06shake

 

VERY cool. But I personally want that star to have an equally cool name. SM0313 just doesn't cut it. Maybe someone should have a "naming contest" for this star - it's too astounding to just move on and dismiss. Needs a public marketing plan, imho.


F&S

Eve.
i think that's an appropriate name.

reply to post by taoistguy


If we are going to go down the biblical path then I prefer Lilith after all she did precede Eve.

reply to post by TheConstruKctionofLight


yes, science\scientists are always doing that- making claims then changing the goalposts. their apologists say science is a 'developing' process of 'gathering facts'...lol.

andy06shake
reply to post by taoistguy

 

If we are going to go down the biblical path then I prefer Lilith after all she did precede Eve.

perfect!

lillith it is then.

Here is the link to Keller and his colleagues published work in the journal Nature.

And here are few other interesting reads I had found around the net this morning on the subject:

www.space.com...

www.gmanetwork.com...

www.youtube.com...

www.popsci.com...

This doesn't make any sense!!

When you look at the universe the greater the distance you look the further back in time you look.

So at the furthest reaches of our Universe that we can see at least are the youngest formed stars and thus should be the oldest stars to date.

If it were possible to age all the known stars in the universe.... which I might add it isn't... We could trace the location of the big bang event.

Peace,

Korg.

i'm just waiting for them to find a star several billion years older than the universe.
i predict that will happen yesterday.

reply to post by taoistguy


Heh, trying to understand some of the science jargon passed around in this thread has thrown my sense of time as I see it a little of skew as well.

Korg Trinity
If it were possible to age all the known stars in the universe.... which I might add it isn't... We could trace the location of the big bang event.

The Big Bang did not happen in one place, it occurred everywhere simultaneously. The Big Bang was not matter exploding into empty space, the big bang was space itself expanding along with matter.

Korg Trinity
This doesn't make any sense!!

When you look at the universe the greater the distance you look the further back in time you look...

This is true with respect to what you're seeing in a telescope. It doesn't mean the youngest stars are closest to us. That wouldn't make sense, if you think about it a while.

Given that the Sun is a 3rd generation star ( meaning all the material that makes it up has already been born and destroyed twice in previous Suns)- this is like saying they've found the oceans oldest whirlpool.

Given that "oldest Star" claim is caveated with the "Known Universe", the Ocean in my example would be to grand an analogy...this is like finding the oldest whirlpool in your bath as our ability to properly inspect the Universe is severely limited by time.

TheConstruKctionofLight

I thought the further out you look thats where the oldest items were. Isnt that how they supposedly calculated the age of the Universe?
Now whats the Oldest Star in the Universe doing in our backyard?
I thought the milky way was a relatively young galaxy.

Help Please...it does not compute!

Ok, this seems to be a common misconception. Explanation time! It takes time for light to cross space. We know how fast it goes to a great degree of accuracy. So, events you see in a telescope or radio-telescope are seen by EM radiation that has been crawling across space for an amount of time related to the distance of the event.

That means the events you see in a telescope happened long ago for distant objects, the farther away, the longer ago.

What that does NOT mean is that the objects at a distance are older, and objects close to us are newer. That would require that the universe somehow came into being at a distance first and that the Earth is the newest thing in the universe. That doesn't make sense.

To recap, what you read is more properly expressed as - the farther away a celestial event is, the further back in time the event you are seeing occurred, because the light took longer to get to you so you could see the event. But that's got nothing to do with how old things are.

As far as spectroscopy and stars, you can look at the hydrogen/helium ratios, the star's temperature and size and you can make a pretty good estimate of a star's age based on how long it's been fusing and the place on the main sequence.

reply to post by 1n3MANarmy


Now I'm confused. Is SMSS J031300.362670839.3 a star, or the remains of a star, now a black hole?

The ancient star formed not long after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, according to Australian National University scientists. The star (called SMSS J031300.362670839.3) is located 6,000 light-years from Earth and formed from the remains of a primordial star that was 60 times more massive than the sun.

...However, the new observations have shown that SMSS J031300.362670839.3's composition harbors no iron pollution. Instead, the star is mostly polluted by lighter elements like carbon, ANU officials said.

"This indicates the primordial star's supernova explosion was of surprisingly low energy," Keller said. "Although sufficient to disintegrate the primordial star, almost all of the heavy elements such as iron, were consumed by a black hole that formed at the heart of the explosion."