Oldest star in solar neighbourhood
This is a Digitized Sky Survey image of the oldest star with a well-determined age in our galaxy. The ageing star, catalogued as HD 140283, lies over 190 light-years away. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was used to narrow the measurement uncertainty on the star's distance, and this helped to refine the calculation of a more precise age of 14.5 billion years (plus or minus 800 million years).
The star is rapidly passing through our local stellar neighborhood. The star's orbit carries it through the plane of our galaxy from the galactic halo that has a population of ancient stars. The Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO) UK Schmidt telescope photographed the star in blue
light.
Digitized Sky Survey (DSS), STScI/AURA, Palomar/Caltech, and UKSTU/AAO
About the Image
NASA caption
Id: | opo1308a |
Type: | Observation |
Release date: | 13 March 2013, 19:00 |
Size: | 1500 x 1200 px |
About the Object
Name: | HD 140283 |
Type: | Milky Way : Star |
Distance: | 200 light years |
Constellation: | Libra |
Category: | Stars |
Wallpapers
Coordinates
Position (RA): | 15 43 4.30 |
Position (Dec): | -10° 55' 51.51" |
Field of view: | 25.23 x 20.18 arcminutes |
Orientation: | North is 0.2° left of vertical |
Colours & filters
Band | Telescope |
---|---|
Optical B | DSS |