Hubble image archive
Artist's View of Ancient Star
This is an illustration of the oldest star ever found in our solar neighborhood. The aging star, cataloged as HD 140283, lies 190.1 light-years from Earth. Hubble Space Telescope observations narrowed the measurement uncertainty on the star's distance, and this helped refine the...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2013
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2013-08-3150-image
This is an illustration of the oldest star ever found in our solar neighborhood. The aging star, cataloged as HD 140283, lies 190.1 light-years from Earth. Hubble Space Telescope observations narrowed the measurement uncertainty on the star's distance, and this helped refine the calculation of a more precise age of 14.5 billion years (plus or minus 800 million years).
Because the aging star is relatively nearby, familiar stars and constellations as seen from Earth are in the sky, but in different locations. At upper left is the constellation Orion, which looks distorted from our new perspective in space. Just to the upper left of the foreground star is the Pleiades cluster. To the lower left of the cluster, our Sun has dimmed to an apparent magnitude of +7, placing it below naked-eye visibility.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and A. Feild and F. Summers (STScI)Image Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | HD 140283 |
| Object Description | Oldest Star in Solar Neighborhood |
| R.A. Position | 15h 43m 03s.10 |
| Dec. Position | -10° 56' 00".60 |
| Constellation | Libra |
| Distance | 190.1 light-years (58.3 parsecs) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The Hubble data were taken from HST proposals , , and : PI: D. VandenBerg (University of Victoria), H. Bond (STScI and Pennsylvania State University), and E. Nelan (STScI). The science team comprises: H. Bond (STScI and Pennsylvania State University), E. Nelan (STScI), D. VandenBerg (University of Victoria), G. Schaefer (CHARA, Mt. Wilson Observatory), and D. Harmer (NOAO). Note: The image of HD 140283 used in this release was taken for the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS; STScI/AURA, Palomar/Caltech, and UKSTU/AAO). The Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO) UK Schmidt telescope photographed the star in blue light. |
| Instrument | HST>FGS |
| Exposure Dates | August 2003 - March 2011 |
| Filters | F583W (583nm) |
More Images From This Period
Downloads
Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov