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Ancient Star Found, Estimated at 13.2 Billion Years Old
raguirre writes "An article on Physorg.org reports that a newly found star may be as old as the universe itself. Recent studies have concluded that the Big Bang occurred somewhere in the neighborhood of 13.7 Billion years ago. The star, a heavy-elements laden fossil labeled HE 1523-0901 on charts was probably born right around the same time; approximately 13.2 Billion years ago. 'Today, astronomer Anna Frebel of the the University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory and her colleagues have deduced the star's age based on the amounts of radioactive elements it contains compared to certain other "anchor" elements, specifically europium, osmium and iridium.'"
Precisely. I always enjoy it when scientists put dates on objects based on earlier dates placed on other objects and assumptions. How many assumptions can you stack on one another before it all comes crumbling down?
Oh, and as an intelligent religious person allow me to demonstrate to you a very simple thought that makes this dating process irrelevant thereby allowing the universe to be whatever age you want it to be. Just like carbon dating this process assumes that the initial amount of radioactive material was equal to a certain value. What if this star, created 6000 years ago (for argument), was simply created with more radioactive material than another star or similar age? Is there anything in physics that makes that impossible? I highly doubt it. (And just for reference I'm ignoring the whole "dating by distance" issue as it's easily solved by the VSL theory, which is unacceptable to most scientists, and offtopic anyhows). There is absolutely no proof that this started with a balanced mixture of the observed elements, or that it even started with the standard ratio, and yet we can deduce it's age because we know that it had to have started with ratio X of materials because then it's age would be 13.2 billion years which makes perfect sense if you accept our theory which is obviously true because this star is 13.2 billion years old!
This star may well be 13.2 billion years old but until a method of measuring it's age that doesn't depend on a huge number of assumptions is developed I don't see any reason to concern myself with it honestly. If you want to pull it out as evidence that the universe is 13.7 billion years old and I'm an idiot for believing it's not then fine, be my guest. I'll be over there pondering some of the current science, you know, the observable stuff that you can apply the scientific method to?
- Is totally prepared for a troll or flamebait mod, doesn't care because he's tired of seeing religious people bashed as idiots over and over again because they disbelieve something that is based on a number of assumptions and the belief that we're the smartest things that have ever and will ever live and that we understand everything...
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
Maybe they will say something like: "You cannot disprove that a God exists" or maybe "It takes more faith to believe in evolution then it does to believe creation". We all know cosmological beginnings is a proven fact. The big bang has been tested and confirmed to be true in many labritories across America. They have also witnessed a monkey evolve into a human too. And you know what else? They also have also disproved the laws of entropy and made a perpetual motion generator. And with this achievement, they have discovered the secret to time travel and have sent people back in time to before the universe came into existance so that they could witness the big bang... Now they are just waiting for them to get back... Hopefully they get back before the Big Crunch... Maybe they were burned up buy the hot and dense state of the universe back then.