By Stacy Palen.

Summary: A red dwarf star in the Milky Way barely contains any heavy elements at all. Its age is estimated at 13.5 billion years.

Article: http://www.astronomy.com/news/2018/11/red-dwarf-is-one-of-the-oldest-in-the-universe.

Questions for Students:

1. Why does the lack of heavy elements imply that the star formed very soon after the Big Bang?

Answer: Because since the Big Bang, stars have been making heavy elements and returning them to the interstellar medium. Young stars have more heavy elements than older stars.

2. Why do astronomers think there must have been at least “one ancestor” before this star formed?

Answer: Because it has some heavy elements in it.

3. How is the birth of this small star connected to the first generation of stars, which were probably ALL very massive?

Answer: Supernova explosions from those first stars could trigger the formation of smaller stars.

4. Where would this star lie on an H-R Diagram?

Answer: This star, because it is a very small red dwarf, would lie at the lower right on a H-R diagram.

5. This star is one-seventh (about 0.15 times) the mass of the Sun. Which of the following is a reasonable main sequence lifetime for a star with that mass?
a. 10 million years
b. 100 million years
c. 1 billion years
d. 10 billion years
e. 1 trillion years

Answer: e.

6. Astronomers can confidently state that all stars like this one (with similar mass) are still around, and none have died yet. Why can they state this so confidently?

Answer: Because 1 trillion years is a lot longer than the age of the universe.