What Are the Oldest and Youngest Starts in the Galaxy?

26.10.2022, 10:38 root-nation.com

Among the countless number of stars that sparkle in the vastness of space, some are so old that they survived the dawn of the universe, and others are so young that even the most powerful telescopes on Earth could not observe them. But is it possible to find out which star is the youngest and which is the oldest? The youngest star in our universe is difficult to determine because stars are born all the time, but there are several candidates that we know about. However, scientists have known about the oldest known star – named Methuselah – for decades. Stars are born deep within vast clouds of dust and gas known as nebulae. According to NASA, some clumps of gas in the nebula are weighed down with so much material that their own gravity causes them to collapse (because more mass means more gravity), and the intense gravitational pull at the center of the collapsing cloud causes the gas — mostly hydrogen — to pile up into the matter, which becomes a protostar. These stellar cores begin to fuse hydrogen nuclei into helium and emit energy. A star cannot be called a star until it emits the energy that makes it so incredibly bright.