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Oldest Planet Ever Discovered

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the brand-new-old-stuff dept.

crymeph0 writes "NASA has found the oldest known planet in a globular star cluster in the constellation Scorpius. At 13.7 billion years old, it's just slighly (~1 billion years) younger than the universe itself. Get more info from HubbleSite"

2 of 370 comments (clear)

  1. Re:WOW!!! by beacher · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I didn't RTFA, but if it's a gas giant, I can compare it to my father in law and see which spews off the oldest hot air...
    -B

  2. Re:scientists by panurge · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    This is science. If you have several possible methods of measuring things, try them all and look for inconsistencies. It's how the age of the Earth was first understood: the Victorians started to understand geological processes and understood that to weather rocks would take longer than the then current age for the Earth. Faced with a choice between a calculation done by a mad Irish bishop based on a bad translation of a book done by desert nomads, and evidence collected by geologists from all over the Earth, the part of the human race with brains went with the geologists. That's called scientific method.

    --
    Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.