The oldest things in the universe are the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation, which is the leftover heat from the Big Bang itself, and the earliest structures like the Cosmic Web filaments, followed closely by the first stars (like HD 140283 or Methuselah Star) and the oldest galaxies (such as MACS0647-JD or GN-z11) that formed just a few hundred million years after the universe began, all observed as light that traveled billions of years to reach us.
⭐ The Methuselah Star Seems Older Than the Universe – and We Can't Fully Explain Why Just 190 light-years from Earth, HD 140283 — known as the Methuselah star — has puzzled astronomers for decades. Its properties suggest it formed 14.5 billion years ago, yet the universe itself is only 13.8 billion years old.
About 95% of the universe is "invisible" because it's composed of dark matter (around 27%) and dark energy (around 68%), which don't emit, absorb, or reflect light, unlike the normal matter (stars, planets, us) that makes up the visible 5%. Dark matter's presence is inferred through its gravitational pull on visible galaxies, while dark energy is a mysterious force causing the universe's accelerated expansion.
The Universe is precisely dated at 13.8 billion years old, but astronomers claim the Methuselah star is 14.5 billion years old.
That means billions of years ago, everything in the universe was contained in a tiny ball that exploded! Wow! This breakthrough idea later became known as the Big Bang! The Big Bang was the moment 13.8 billion years ago when the universe began as a tiny, dense, fireball that exploded.
In 1 sextillion years (10²¹ years), the universe will be a vastly different, dark place: the era of star formation will have ended, all stars will have burned out into white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes, planets will be cold and lifeless, and even protons might begin to decay, leading towards the "Big Freeze" or heat death, with only black holes slowly evaporating via Hawking radiation over unimaginable timescales. All familiar structures, including galaxies, will have long dissolved as the universe expands, leaving behind a cold, dark, and nearly empty expanse.
There is consensus that supermassive black holes exist in the centres of most galaxies. The presence of a black hole can be inferred through its interaction with other matter and with electromagnetic radiation such as visible light.
“It's totally 100% true – nearly all the elements in the human body were made in a star and many have come through several supernovas.”
Yes, when you look at the Sun, you see it as it was about 8 minutes ago because light travels at a finite speed, taking roughly 8.3 minutes to cover the distance from the Sun to Earth, acting like a cosmic time machine, showing us the past of all celestial objects. This means if the Sun vanished, we wouldn't know for 8 minutes, and it also applies to everything else in space, with farther objects showing us even older history.
Over the years, the Church of God has explained that God has a 7,000-year plan. While this is not specifically stated in Scripture, it is understood through history and scriptural analogy.
Space, or outer space, is a vast, near-perfect vacuum largely devoid of matter. This vacuum contains very few particles compared with Earth's atmosphere. However, it's not entirely empty. Space is dotted with scattered matter called the interstellar medium, which includes hydrogen and helium atoms.
As defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a light-year is the distance that light travels in vacuum in one Julian year (365.25 days). Despite its inclusion of the word "year", the term is not a unit of time.
These are the first words in the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Everything that exists has been created by God. This means the full expanse of the universe was created by God.
1 hour on Earth can equal 7 years in space (or vice versa) due to time dilation, a concept from Einstein's relativity where strong gravity or extreme speeds slow down time relative to an outside observer, famously depicted in the movie Interstellar on a planet near a black hole where an hour for the crew meant years passing on Earth. It's not about speed alone in orbit (ISS astronauts age slightly slower), but about proximity to immense mass, like a black hole, bending spacetime so drastically that time crawls for those nearby compared to time far away.
When was Planet X (Planet Nine) discovered? To be clear, Planet X (Planet Nine) has not yet been discovered, and there is debate in the scientific community about whether it exists.
In Big Bang cosmology, the Planck epoch or Planck era is the earliest stage of the Big Bang, before the time passed was equal to the Planck time, tP, or approximately 10−43 seconds.
Looking toward the sun we thus see a brilliant white light while looking away we would see only the darkness of empty space. Since there is virtually nothing in space to scatter or re-radiate the light to our eye, we see no part of the light and the sky appears to be black.
Why do you think getting to space is so difficult when it's only 62 miles away? Answer: Space is 62 vertical miles away. It takes a lot of energy to overcome gravity for that distance and gain the speed required to stay in orbit (approximately 17,500 miles per hour) once you've arrived.
Eventually gravity draws this stardust together to form planets like the Earth. Everything on Earth, from rocks, stones, water, crystals, to all living things like people, animals, insects, birds, fish, grass, trees and flowers, is made of this stardust.
Water is your body's principal chemical component and makes up about 50% to 70% of your body weight. Your body depends on water to survive. Every cell, tissue and organ in your body needs water to work properly.
Very massive stars use up their fuel quickly. This means they may only last a few hundred thousand years. Smaller stars use fuel more slowly and will shine for several billion years. Eventually, the hydrogen that powers a star's nuclear reactions begins to run out.
Black Holes. Find out why we can't see them! At the center of most galaxies is one of the strangest and deadliest things in the universe: a black hole.
By analyzing the frequencies of gravitational waves from a merger between two black holes, the team verified Stephen Hawking's 1971 black-hole area theorem, which states the total surface area of black holes cannot decrease.
Your body stretches out, not uncomfortably at first, but over time, the stretching will become more severe. Astronomers call this spaghettification because the intense gravitational field pulls you into a long, thin piece of spaghetti. When you start feeling pain depends on the size of the black hole.