This article is missing information about the age of the very oldest stars in our galaxy's bulge such as from the Gaia spacecraft. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page. (June 2018)

The age of the oldest known stars approaches the age of the universe, about 13.8 billion years. Some of these are among the first stars from reionization (the stellar dawn), ending the Dark Ages about 370,000 years after the Big Bang.[1] These are recognized as among the oldest individual stars observed so far:

Name Age
(billions of years) 		Mass (M☉) Distance Location description
The Methuselah Star or HD 140283 13.7 ± 0.7[2][a] ~0.8 190 ly[3] Milky Way, 19° north of Galactic Centre, closer than the Galactic bulge.
2MASS J18082002−5104378 13.53[4][5] ~0.8 1 950 ly Milky Way thin disk
BD+17°3248 13.8 ± 4[6][a] ~0.8 968 ly Milky Way halo
HE 1219-0312 13.6 ~0.8 32 000 ly Milky Way halo
HD 164922 13.6 ~0.85 72 ly Milky Way halo
HD 221170[citation needed] 13.6 ~0.8 1 800 ly Milky Way halo
SMSS J031300.36−670839.3 13.4[7] ~0.75 6 000 ly Milky Way halo or Globular clusters
BPS CS22957-0027 or HE 2356-0410[citation needed] 13.4 ~0.8 36 000 ly Milky Way halo
J173823.38-145701.1[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.85 28 000 ly (8.5 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J182048.26-273329.2[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 20 000 ly (6.0 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J183744.90-280831.1[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 57 400 ly (17.6 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J183647.89-274333.1[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 22 000 ly (6.6 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J183812.72-270746.3[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 40 100 ly (12.3 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J183719.09-262725.0[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 32 600 ly (10.0 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J184201.19-302159.6[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 31 000 ly (9.6 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J184656.07-292351.5[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.75 31 000 ly (9.5 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J181406.68-313106.1[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 30 000 ly (9.3 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J181317.69-343801.9[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.75 21 000 ly (6.5 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J181219.68-343726.4[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.75 26 000 ly (8.0 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J181609.62-333218.7[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 33 900 ly (10.4 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J181634.60-340342.5[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 34 200 ly (10.5 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J175544.54-392700.9[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 44 000 ly (13.5 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J175455.52-380339.3[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 44 000 ly (13.5 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J175746.58-384750.0[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.75 30 000 ly (9.1 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J181736.59-391303.3[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 51 200 ly (15.7 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J181505.16-385514.9[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 16 000 ly (5.0 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J181921.64-381429.0[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 36 500 ly (11.2 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J175722.68-411731.8[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.85 40 400 ly (12.4 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J175021.86-414627.1[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 13 000 ly (4.1 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J175636.59-403545.9[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 32 000 ly (9.8 kpc) Milky Way bulge
J175433.19-411048.9[8] 13.2 or more[9] ~0.8 18 000 ly (5.6 kpc) Milky Way bulge
BPS CS22949-0037 or HE 2323-0256[citation needed] 13.2 ~0.8 22 000 ly Milky Way halo
HE 0557-4840[citation needed] 13.2 ~0.85 45 000 ly Milky Way halo
HE 1327-2326 13.2 ~0.75 4 000 ly Milky Way halo
HE 1523-0901 13.2 ~0.8 7 500 ly Milky Way halo
HE 2327-5642[citation needed] 13.2 ~0.8 18 000 ly Milky Way halo
HE 2252-4225[citation needed] 13 ~0.85 75 000 ly Milky Way halo
Caffau's Star or SDSS J102915+172927 13 ~0.8 4 500 ly (1.37+.15
−.12 kpc) 		Milky Way halo
SDSS J001820.5−093939.2 13 ~0.8 40 000 ly Milky Way halo
HE 0107-5240 13 ~0.8 36 000 ly Milky Way halo
HE 0020-1741 13 ~0.8 22 000 ly Milky Way halo
Sneden's Star or BPS CS22892-0052 13 ~0.8 15 300 ly Milky Way halo
Cayrel's Star or BPS CS31082-0001 13 ~0.8 14 000 ly
(4 kpc) 		Milky Way halo
HD 122563 13 ~0.85 770 ly Milky Way halo
HD 130322 13 ~0.8 103 ly Milky Way halo

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Note conflicting estimates: Star’s estimated age exceeds the estimated age of the universe.

References

  1. ^ Barkana, Rennan (1 March 2018). "Possible interaction between baryons and dark-matter particles revealed by the first stars". Nature. 555 (7694): 71–74. arXiv:1803.06698. Bibcode:2018Natur.555...71B. doi:10.1038/nature25791. PMID 29493590. S2CID 4391544.
  2. ^ Creevey, O.L.; Thévenin, F.; Berio, P.; Heiter, U.; von Braun, K.; Mourard, D.; et al. (2015). "Benchmark stars for Gaia fundamental properties of the Population II star HD 140283 from interferometric, spectroscopic, and photometric data". Astronomy and Astrophysics. 575: A26. arXiv:1410.4780. Bibcode:2015A&A...575A..26C. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201424310. S2CID 18003446.
  3. ^ David Crookes (7 March 2022). "Methuselah: The oldest star in the universe". Space.com. Retrieved 3 April 2022.
  4. ^ Schlaufman, Kevin C.; Thompson, Ian B.; Casey, Andrew R. (5 November 2018). "An ultra metal-poor star near the hydrogen-burning limit". The Astrophysical Journal. 867 (2): 98. arXiv:1811.00549. Bibcode:2018ApJ...867...98S. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aadd97. S2CID 54511945.
  5. ^ "One of Milky Way's oldest stars discovered". SciNews.com. 6 November 2018. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
  6. ^ Cowan, John J.; Sneden, Christopher; Burles, Scott; Ivans, Inese I.; Beers, Timothy C.; Truran, James W.; et al. (June 2002). "The Chemical Composition and Age of the Metal-poor Halo Star BD +17°3248". The Astrophysical Journal. 572 (2): 861–879. arXiv:astro-ph/0202429. Bibcode:2002ApJ...572..861C. doi:10.1086/340347. S2CID 119503888.
  7. ^ Ishigaki, Miho N.; Tominaga, Nozomu; Kobayashi, Chiaki; Nomoto, Ken'ichi (2014). "Faint Population III supernovae as the origin of the most iron-poor stars". The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 792 (2): L32. arXiv:1404.4817. Bibcode:2014ApJ...792L..32I. doi:10.1088/2041-8205/792/2/L32. S2CID 119012372.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w
    Howes, L.M.; Casey, A.R.; Asplund, M.; Keller, S.C.; Yong, D.; Nataf, D.M.; et al. (26 November 2015). "Extremely metal-poor stars from the cosmic dawn in the bulge of the Milky Way". Nature. 527 (7579): 484–487. arXiv:1511.03930. Bibcode:2015Natur.527..484H. doi:10.1038/nature15747. hdl:2299/19217. PMID 26560034. S2CID 4446599.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w
    Tumlinson, Jason (2010). "Chemical evolution in hierarchical models of cosmic structure. II. The formation of the Milky Way stellar halo and the distribution of the oldest stars". The Astrophysical Journal. 708 (2): 1398–1418. arXiv:0911.1786. Bibcode:2010ApJ...708.1398T. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/708/2/1398. S2CID 118367629.
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