Gyrochronology: How To Accurately Determine The Age Of A Star
Monday, January 12, 2015 - 08:40
in Astronomy & Space
By observing and surveying 30 cool solar-type stars in the 2.5 Billion-year-old cluster NGC 6819 an international research team has created an analytical procedure for accurately determining the ages of stars with knowledge of their masses and rotation periods. This "gyrochronology", a neologism of co-author Sydney Barnes, has been shown to work over a wide age range, significantly improving the accuracy of stellar age determination. "The relationship between mass, rotation rate and age of the observed stars is now defined well enough that by measuring the first two parameters, the third, the star's age, can be determined with only 10 percent uncertainty," said Barnes. read more