I was hoping for some weird time-bending effect from general relativity, but no, it’s just that the ages are within each other’s error bars.
How Can a Star Be Older Than the Universe?
21–30 of 231 posts
Re: How Can a Star Be Older Than the Universe?
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
And it's only older than the universe if you assume the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe, which there's really no evidence to suggest. Pretty much everything else in the universe all seems to suggest that it all originated from a similar point in time and space and that it rapidly expanded outward. Okay. But what was going on in this particular space back then is completely unknown, so... could there have b…
(That) Space was also created by the big bang.
What's the evidence of that? I'm not arguing, but between cosmic background radiation, doppler shift of stars and the relationship between speed / distance, all the evidence of the big bang I've heard doesn't suggest anything about space itself.
Re: How Can a Star Be Older Than the Universe?
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
And it's only older than the universe if you assume the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe, which there's really no evidence to suggest. Pretty much everything else in the universe all seems to suggest that it all originated from a similar point in time and space and that it rapidly expanded outward. Okay. But what was going on in this particular space back then is completely unknown, so... could there have b…
Even ignoring complicated questions about gravity and space metrics and their evolution over time, if a big bang occurred in an occupied region of space, we'd see the results of these two things crashing together. We see similar, but much smaller, such things all over the place in space. We do not see any collisions best explained this way.
What would it even look like if it was occupied space? Uneven expansion?
Re: How Can a Star Be Older Than the Universe?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
And it's only older than the universe if you assume the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe, which there's really no evidence to suggest. Pretty much everything else in the universe all seems to suggest that it all originated from a similar point in time and space and that it rapidly expanded outward. Okay. But what was going on in this particular space back then is completely unknown, so... could there have b…
But why would that matter? If, like you said "...all originated from a similar point in time and space and that it rapidly expanded outward", any star forming next to it would be pushed out of the observable edge. Hence, no one would ever know if a star was there in the first place.
Our universe in it's recent state is incredibly sparse. What would have pushed a star out of the observable edge, exactly?
Re: How Can a Star Be Older Than the Universe?
#25I was hoping for some weird time-bending effect from general relativity, but no, it’s just that the ages are within each other’s error bars.
Still an interesting read and thought experiment.
Re: How Can a Star Be Older Than the Universe?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even ignoring complicated questions about gravity and space metrics and their evolution over time, if a big bang occurred in an occupied region of space, we'd see the results of these two things crashing together. We see similar, but much smaller, such things all over the place in space. We do not see any collisions best explained this way.
What would it even look like if it was occupied space? Uneven expansion?
Colliding bits of material produce light. Even colliding hydrogen clouds produce detectable signatures. If, for the sake of argument, two big bangs occurred and we could see where they met, there would be a large visible region in the universe putting out some sort of photons. (Not necessarily visible ones.)
More subtle things would be visible too, like, yes, interacting gravity fields, but it wouldn't take such clever analysis; the impact points would literally light up in the sky.
Re: How Can a Star Be Older Than the Universe?
#27> It's composition meant the star must have come into being before iron became commonplace.
Hypothesis 1: the star formed in a way that did not involve or produce a lot of iron.
Hypothesis 2: the star is older than the universe itself.
Clearly, hypothesis 2 is the more likely.A
Re: How Can a Star Be Older Than the Universe?
#28> It's composition meant the star must have come into being before iron became commonplace.
Hypothesis 1: the star formed in a way that did not involve or produce a lot of iron.
Hypothesis 2: the star is older than the universe itself.
Clearly, hypothesis 2 is the more likely.
Re: How Can a Star Be Older Than the Universe?
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
And it's only older than the universe if you assume the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe, which there's really no evidence to suggest. Pretty much everything else in the universe all seems to suggest that it all originated from a similar point in time and space and that it rapidly expanded outward. Okay. But what was going on in this particular space back then is completely unknown, so... could there have b…
Even ignoring complicated questions about gravity and space metrics and their evolution over time, if a big bang occurred in an occupied region of space, we'd see the results of these two things crashing together. We see similar, but much smaller, such things all over the place in space. We do not see any collisions best explained this way.
As I've said in another comment, in most of the time since the Big Bang space was been extremely sparse. If there's 1 example of a star that could maybe be older than the rest of it, what makes you think we'd be seeing collisions more frequently if some stuff existed at the time of the Big Bang. I'm not even suggesting there was a second Big Bang that immediately preceded the one we already talk about. But other than theory, we know nothing about pre-Big Bang conditions, so I don't see how we can reason with confidence about how nothing within the current bubble of the observable universe could possibly have existed outside of that bubble at any point. Maybe with the star's current direction it's consistent with the same Big Bang, but we seem awfully confident about conditions we've never observed.
Re: How Can a Star Be Older Than the Universe?
#30What came first, the photon or the electron? Can a photon be emitted without a change in energy state?
I’m new here, so instead of answering questions is the protocol just to downvote?