What is the oldest star that is still alive?

The Methuselah Star: A Living Fossil from the Early Universe

Drifting through the Milky Way, about 200 light years from Earth, lies one of the most remarkable stars ever discovered—HD 140283, more poetically known as the Methuselah star. Located in the constellation Libra near its border with Ophiuchus, this ancient subgiant has captured the fascination of astronomers not for its brightness, but for its astonishing age.

With an apparent magnitude of 7.205, the Methuselah star isn’t visible to the naked eye, but it can be spotted with a good pair of binoculars under dark skies. What makes it truly extraordinary is its composition: extremely low in metals, a telltale sign that it formed in the early days of the universe when heavy elements were scarce. Stars like this one are among the first generations to have ignited after the Big Bang.

Initial estimates of its age caused quite a stir—scientists once thought it was older than the universe itself, which would have been impossible. Refined measurements, accounting for factors like oxygen content and stellar evolution models, now place its age at around 14.5 billion years, comfortably within the 13.8-billion-year age of the universe. Still, that makes HD 140283 one of the oldest known stars still burning today.

As a subgiant, it’s no longer fusing hydrogen in its core and has begun its transition toward the end of its life. Yet, in cosmic terms, it’s taking its time—moving slowly through its final phases. Seeing it through binoculars is like peering into the infancy of our galaxy, a faint but enduring echo of the cosmos’s earliest chapters.

The Methuselah star reminds us that the sky is more than just a nightly show—it’s a living archive, written in starlight.