Ancient star cluster near Milky Way's center may date back to early universe
A metal-poor globular cluster named VVV CL001, located near the Milky Way’s center and obscured by interstellar dust, has been estimated to be about 13.4 billion years old—nearly as old as the universe itself. Its age was determined using advanced observational techniques and data from multiple telescopes, including Hubble. The discovery provides key insights into the formation and early history of our galaxy.
Astronomers have identified VVV CL001, a metal-poor globular cluster located near the Milky Way’s center, as one of the oldest known stellar systems in our galaxy, with an estimated age of 13.4 billion years—just 600 million years after the Big Bang. Situated approximately 7.34 kiloparsecs (about 24,000 light-years) from Earth within the galactic bulge, the cluster had long remained obscured by dense interstellar dust, making distance and age measurements extremely challenging. The breakthrough came through deep near-infrared observations using the FourStar camera on the Magellan Baade Telescope and high-resolution imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope, which allowed researchers to identify 155 confirmed cluster members, including stars in the main-sequence turnoff (TO) and horizontal branch (HB) stages. These evolutionary markers are critical for age estimation; the TO point, where stars transition from hydrogen fusion to helium burning, directly correlates with age. The team, led by J. Olivares Carvajal of INAF Capodimonte Astronomical Observatory, used these data to refine the cluster’s distance and age with unprecedented precision—reporting a margin of error of ±0.4 billion years. This places VVV CL001 as a potential candidate for the oldest globular cluster in the Milky Way’s bulge, possibly even in the entire galaxy. Prior studies had failed to detect these key stellar stages due to insufficient depth and resolution, particularly in dusty regions. The discovery builds
The discovery of VVV CL001 could deepen public fascination with cosmic origins and reinforce the scientific narrative that our galaxy is a mosaic of ancient building blocks. As one of the few known stellar systems nearly as old as the universe, it may influence how space agencies and science communicators frame galactic evolution in educational materials and media. The use of advanced tools like Hubble and machine learning algorithms highlights the growing role of computational methods in observational astronomy, potentially accelerating similar discoveries in other obscured regions. This could impact funding priorities for next-generation telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope or future ground-based observatories with adaptive optics. A comparable precedent is the 2019 discovery of the star SMSS J031300.36-670839.3, one of the oldest known stars, which similarly reshaped understanding of early stellar populations. While VVV CL001’s age does not challenge cosmological model