On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 8:36 PM, Jones Beene <jone...@pacbell.net> wrote: > I'm mentioning this bit of cosmology as "on topic" simply because it shows > how tenuous is "expert consensus" on the most important things in our > Universe. We as an advanced society are far from having a complete knowledge > of physics, contrary to belief in the Ivory Towers of academia. > > This star's age is a real embarrassment for any putative Standard Model of > Cosmology :-) and with implications for the Standard Model for Physics. > Called the Methuselah star, aka HD 140283 - this object is actually in our > galaxy, which makes it even more problematic since it close to home. > > Astronomers refined the star's age down to about 14.5 billion years (which > is still older than the universe), from the original data showing 16 billion > years old. In either event it is way older then the Milky Way - yet there it > is - not too far away cosmologically speaking. >
Indeed, If it is really that old it should be billions of light years away from our own galaxy according to standard cosmology. > The revision downward was a cop-out since the original estimate is based on > techniques used for everything else. In fact, the star could be at least two > billion years older than the Universe as a whole if most of our prior > assumptions are correct. > > http://www.space.com/20114-oldest-star-hubble-telescope-images.html > > Now ... here is the interesting part if the age measurement techniques were > to be correct. > > Say our Universe expands and collapses - on long very cycles. > > Can a "seed star" born at the end of the previous cycle, somehow survive the > collapse and carry forward anything relevant (i.e. 'information') between > cycles? > > This has definite implications going all the way to theology, no? A cyclic universe with no ulitmate beginning is a challenge for theology. Harry
