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The 7 Oldest Stars in the Universe
Have you ever imagined what the oldest stars would look like? How old can these stars be? There is an abundance of mysteries in space and this is surely one of them. Some of the stars were created right after the Big Bang and others are being created at this moment. Here are the 7 oldest stars that we assume from our knowledge of the universe.
The first star is SDSS J102915+172927, also known as the Caffau's star. It is around 13 billion years old and is the lowest star in metallicity that we have discovered. It only has hydrogen and helium without nothing much else. It is also called the impossible star because on top of hydrogen and helium, there is a small amount of calcium. There is nothing else but calcium and thus is the only such star that we have seen. It is around 4,140 light years away and will probably not visit this star anytime soon. Finally, it is only around 80 percent of the size of our sun and is coming to its end very soon.
The 7 Oldest Stars in the universe: Text
SDSS J102915+172927
The 7 Oldest Stars in the universe: Image
The second star is HD 122563. It is a red giant and is the brightest metal core star that we know. With its brightness, it is the only star to be visible from Earth with a naked eye from all the stars in this list. This star has a lot of other components than calcium including Niobium, Ruthenium, Palladium, silver, and Molybdenum. We are not yet sure of how this star was able to survive for 13 billion years because it is only a few hundred years younger than the universe.
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HD 122563
The 7 Oldest Stars in the universe: Image
The third star is the Sneden’s star, the only star on the list with an actual name. It is very close to the center of the galaxy with over 10,000 light years away from Earth. This star has a metal core with approximately 53 chemical elements inside of it. Similarity, it is around 13 billion years old and again, the scientists are not sure how this star has survived for 13 billion years.
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Sneden's Star
The 7 Oldest Stars in the universe: Image
The fourth star is called HE 1523-0901. It is approximately 13,2 billion years old. It is around seven and a half thousand light years away from us and is possibly the oldest known star; nonetheless, people are not entirely sure how old actually is. The error percentage is high since the age was determined by thorium and uranium. Therefore, it could be as old as the universe or just as young as the other stars mentioned before. The star is 80 percent of the mass of our sun and is reaching the end of its life.
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HE 1523-0901
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The fifth star has an incredibly long name: SMSS J031300.36-670839.3. Unlike the other stars in this list, the star is studied very well and scientists accurately know the age of the star. It is 13.6 billion years old and was already around when most of the other stars were developing. It was around two to three hundred million years after the Big Bang. Moreover, since we have already discovered some calcium and carbon in the star, it most likely came from a supernova. Therefore, it is believed that this is a population two star, a star that forms right after a nearby supernova. It also contains a little bit of magnesium but surprisingly no oxygen or nitrogen. Finally, being a red giant, it is also at its last legs so it might have a few billion years left in it but after this, it is probably going to turn into a white dwarf. Nonetheless, interestingly enough, the star is still very hot, with the surface temperature over six thousand degrees.
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SMSS J031300.36-670839.3
The 7 Oldest Stars in the universe: Image
The sixth star is BD+17°3248. This unusual star has an age that is very uncertain; we believe it might be 13.8 billion years old but it is also possible that it is four billion years younger. The star is around a thousand light years away from us. This is the first ever star where gold was detected. Furthermore, it is believed that this is the first ever gold that was formed in the universe. Even with this gold, it is still a metal-poor star meaning that it does not really have that much material inside the star. Instead, it is believed to be closer to a gas giant, similar to Jupiter. This hypothesis comes from the fact that the major materials here are still hydrogen and helium and nothing much else other than gold.
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BD+17°3248
The 7 Oldest Stars in the universe: Image
The seventh and final star is HD 140283. The star is also known as the Methuselah and is an unusual, controversial star. It is very close and only around 200 light years away. Moreover, it is possibly 14.5 billion years old, potentially clashing with our understanding of when the Big Bang happened. There is still some uncertainty here, however, specifically about 800 million years of uncertainty but it could be even older. We are not entirely sure how old the star is but we know that this is very likely the oldest one we have discovered. The star is 80 percent the mass of our sun and only has just a little bit of lithium, not much of anything else. It is very metal-poor like the other stars on the list and could possibly be another population two star; born right after the initial stars formed in the universe. What makes a renewal is the fact that it is so close to Earth because scientists expect these ancient stars to be very close to the central supermassive black hole, basically in the central halo of the galaxy. Hence, we cannot really explain what it’s doing here. Astronomers also do not really know why not only they’re actually close to us but why it is slowly moving toward our Sun and away from the center of the galaxy. With more discoveries about this star, there is a lot of mysteries that it can answer about the universe.
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HD 140283
The 7 Oldest Stars in the universe: Image
These 7 stars are the oldest stars that we currently know of. Nonetheless, in less than a decade, millions of new stars will be discovered and possibly none of these stars on the current list will be on the future list. Also, with more research on HD 140283, we may be able to answer how the universe was created and how the universe is expanding.
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