Methuselah: The Star That Shouldn't Be Older Than the Universe

About 200 light-years away, in the faint constellation Libra, there's a star you can spot with ordinary binoculars. When astronomers first worked out its age, the answer came back at around 16 billion years. The problem is that the universe itself is only 13.8 billion years old. So how can a star seem older than the universe that made it? The answer involves tiny measurement errors, a missing ingredient, and the "sound" of a star vibrating deep inside. It also turns out this quiet little point of light may be one of the last survivors from the universe's earliest generations of stars. Settle in for a slow, deep journey into the story of Methuselah, the star that shouldn't be older than the universe. Sources Bond, H. E., Nelan, E. P., VandenBerg, D. A., Schaefer, G. H., & Harmer, D. (2013). HD 140283: A Star in the Solar Neighborhood that Formed Shortly after the Big Bang. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 765, L12. https://arxiv.org/abs/1302.3180 Creevey, O. L., Thévenin, F., Berio, P., et al. (2015). Benchmark stars for Gaia: Fundamental properties of the Population II star HD 140283 from interferometric, spectroscopic, and photometric data. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 575, A26. https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/ful... Tang, J., & Joyce, M. (2021). Revised Best Estimates for the Age and Mass of the Methuselah Star HD 140283 using MESA and Interferometry and Implications for 1D Convection. Research Notes of the AAS, 5, 117. https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.11311 Guillaume, C., Buldgen, G., Amarsi, A. M., Dupret, M. A., Lundkvist, M. S., Larsen, J. R., Scuflaire, R., & Noels, A. (2024). The age of the Methuselah star in the light of stellar evolution models with tailored abundances. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 692, L3. https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/ful... Lundkvist, M. S., Larsen, J. R., Li, Y., et al. (2025). Asteroseismic investigation of HD 140283: The Methuselah star. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 703, A232. https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/ful... Planck Collaboration, Aghanim, N., et al. (2020). Planck 2018 results. VI. Cosmological parameters. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 641, A6. https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.06209 NASA (2013, March 7). Hubble Finds Birth Certificate of Oldest Known Star. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hu... #MethuselahStar #OldestStar #Astrophysics #BigBang #CosmicDawn #SpaceScience #HD140283