HD 140283 (or the Methuselah star)[9][10] is a metal-poor subgiant star about 200 light years away from the Earth in the constellation Libra, near the boundary with Ophiuchus in the Milky Way Galaxy.[1] Its apparent magnitude is 7.205.[1] The star’s light is somewhat blueshifted as it is moving toward rather than away from us and it has been known to astronomers for over a century as a high-velocity star based on its other vectors (proper motion). An early spectroscopic analysis by Joseph W. Chamberlain and Lawrence Aller revealed it to have a substantially lower metal content than the Sun.[11] Modern spectroscopic analyses find an iron content about a factor of 250 lower than that of the Sun. It is one of the closest metal-poor (Population II) stars to Earth.
Because HD 140283 is neither on the main sequence nor a red giant, its early position in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram has been interpreted with its data and theoretical models of stellar evolution based on quantum mechanics and the observations of processes in millions of stars to infer its old age. For field stars (as opposed to stars in clusters) it is rare to know a star’s luminosity, surface temperature and composition precisely enough to get a well-constrained value for their age; because of their relative scarcity, this is even rarer for a Population II star like HD 140283. A study published in 2013[13][14] used the Fine Guidance Sensors of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to measure a precise parallax (and therefore distance and luminosity) for the star,[1] and employ this information to estimate an age for the star of 14.46 ± 0.8 billion years.[1] Due to the uncertainty in the value, this age for the star may or may not conflict with the calculated age of the Universe as determined by the final 2015 Planck Satellite results of 13.799 ± 0.021 billion years.[1][15]
Once dubbed the “Methuselah Star” by the popular press due to its age, if the assumptions of stellar evolution are correct in the report, the star must have formed soon after the Big Bang[1] and is one of the oldest stars known.[16] The search for such very iron-poor stars has shown they are almost all anomalies in globular clusters and the Galactic Halo. This concords with a narrative that they are rare survivors of their generation. If so, the apparent visual data of the oldest of these enables us to longstop-date the reionization (first star formation) phase of the Universe independently of theories and evidence of the first few million years after the Big Bang.[17] Most stars from Population II and Population III are no longer observable. Theories exist allowing for an older age of the universe than conventionally accepted, which can still accommodate the observed redshift of early objects and earlier radiation. Some depart from the conventional big-bang/inflation model, such as the steady-state and cyclic models. To date no accurate, greater-age evidence from a cosmic object has been found that calls into question the Planck satellite results.
Studies of the star also help astronomers understand the Universe’s early history. Very low but non-zero metallicities of stars like HD 140283 indicate the star was born in the second generation of stellar creation; their heavy-element content is believed to have come from zero-metal stars (Population III stars), which have never been seen.[18] Those first stars are thought to have been born a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, and they died in explosions (supernovae) after only a few million years.[18] A second generation of stars, the generation in which HD 140283 is theorized to have been born, could not have coalesced until gas, heated from the supernova explosions of the earlier stars, cooled down.[18] This hypothesis of such stars’ birth and our best models of the early universe indicate that the time it took for the gases to cool was likely only a few tens of millions of years.[18]
The proportions of elements in such metal-poor stars is modelled to tell us much of the earlier nucleosynthetic (“metals”) yield, that is of elements other than hydrogen and helium from the supernovae of the locally-extinct Population III stars. Some of the latter may be visible in gravitational lensing in looking at deepest images such as the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (i.e. their brief existence before their turning supernova). Like HD 122563, CS22892-0052, and CD -38 245, HD 140283 has an excesses of oxygen and the alpha elements relative to iron.[1] While the proportions of these elements is much lower in HD 140283 than in the Sun, they are not as low as is the case for iron. The implication is that the first population of stars generated the alpha elements preferentially to other groups of elements, including the iron peak and s-process. Unlike those other metal-poor stars, HD 140283 has a detectable amount of lithium,[19] a consequence of HD 140283 having not yet evolved into a red giant and thus has not yet undergone the first dredge-up.
What is remarkable about HD 140283 is its age of 14.5 billion years old compared to the age of the Universe, rather the Milky Way galaxy being around 13.6 billion years old. With HD 140283 being older than the Milky Way galaxy it perhaps came to be in our galaxy as a result of the Milky Way galaxy colliding with another galaxy that was older than our galaxy., logically speaking of course.
But if HD 140283 was around prior to the Big Bang and came to be in our galaxy as a result of stars and other celestial objects already in the Universe being pushed deeper into space then perhaps the Universal model had several Big Bangs or pushes before it’s entirety was delivered.
One does not simply deliver a baby or a Universe with one push.
Regarldess, I think that a new pattern of searching for systems with habitable planets in them possibly should be conducted using the Pillar Star as its center. Earth is approximately 200 light years from HD 140283 or the Pillar Star. From the Pillar Star we can draw a zone of habitability around the Pillar Star. Stars within the habitable zone of the Pillar Star or approximately 200 light years in any direction would be more likely to have habitable worlds.
Another reason that we haven’t discovered any life forms in our region of space could be that the life building components that created life on Earth also came with the matter that accompanied HD 140283. The collision between the galaxy containing the Pillar Star and the second Big Bang that sent more matter into space that is thought to have consumed the original galaxy of the Pillar Star could have combined to create life on Earth.
Much like there are seasons on Earth that brings about new life and sends other life into dormant states, the Universe would also have seasons as well. Seasons that would involve several changes in the overall state of thermal energies that would create variances in energies that life would need to adapt to in order to evolve. A process of evolution involving work or work involving a species ability to adapt to new releases of energy resulting from a new a Big Bang.
With HD 104283 being a Pillar Star, matter released from the second or third Big Bang could have interacted with the gravity that was present created by HD 140283. The expanding matter, falling into the gravitational pull of the Pillar Star, could have collided to form new stars closer to the Pillar Star itself. As the gravitational influence of the Pillar Star, grew due to more and more stars being created in its gravitational influence zone, matter would have been slowed even more as well as more matter building planetary objects from within the gravitational zones of each newly created solar system.
If you think about it, there would had to have been regions of space already occupied by stars creating gravitational spin that were born from the first Big Bang to anchor other stars into becoming solar systems. Otherwise, what Quantum Mechanism is present that would cause energetic particles to spin in one direction that then would cause a galaxy and all of the galaxies interior celestial objects to have axial spin?
Between the Galaxies
Without the ability to accurately determine if cosmic background radiation is able to travel between galaxies then how can we be for certain that other galaxies are not a lot older than the Milk Way galaxy. Some galaxies could be 10 times older than our own.
We do know that light from other galaxies is able to cross the voids in between each galaxy, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to detect those galaxies at all. So how is light able to travel across the great voids in between each galaxy? There must be a type of a energy transfer in each void between each galaxy that allows for precise transmission of the light from the opposite galaxy to be see by our telescopes.
The best chance for discovering life, other than on Earth, in the Universe is too investigate the stars around Pillar Type Stars. Pillar Stars are much like hydro-thermal vents deep in the ocean. You don’t think there is life at such great depths and extreme cold, but science has already proven otherwise. Hopefully other Pillar Stars will be found that, theoretically, should have a solar system with a habitable planet or planets within a 400 ly diameter.
One does not simply build a galaxy without first putting in pillars to support the roof.
