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much older than dirt; bad idea

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Written by staff

Wednesday, 16 May 2007

much older than dirt

Astronomers have calculated the age of the oldest known star, according to physorg.com, and it's a shocking 13.2 billion years old.

The calculation was made using data obtained by the ESO’s VLT (Very Large Telescope). The star contained the radioactive heavy elements uranium and thorium, elements which decay over time; by measuring the remaining amounts of those elements and comparing them with the amounts of more stable elements present, astronomers were able to calculate the star’s age.

Since the universe itself is estimated to be only 13.7 billion years old, this star (HE 1523) dates back to nearly the beginning of everything.

bad idea

When the private UP Aerospace SpaceLoft XL rocket launched from New Mexico’s Spaceport America on April 28, carrying into sub-orbit the ashes of more than 200 people (among them Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper and Star Trek actor James Doohan) as part of a new service offered by Celestis Incorporated, the intent wasn't to jettison the ashes into space, but simply to carry them into sub-orbital space and then drop them back down to Earth.

That’s a little anticlimactic to start with, but being unable to find the payload once it fell back to Earth highlights the silliness of the whole idea. More than a week after the flight, the president of UP Aerospace claimed that the general location of the payload was known to within 1,300 feet, but due to the rugged terrain, they had been unable to lay hands on it even after repeated searches.

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