A New Way of Telling the Age of Stars: Gyrochronology

This article is an interesting announcement. Scientists have found another method of dating stars, gyrochronology, that is much more accurate. This may not seem like much, but it allows scientists to better understand the evolution of the universe. The new method is heavy on the math and uses the rotation period and color of the star to determine age with an accuracy of 15%, as opposed to the old method with an accuracy of 50%. Apparently the rotation of a star is related to its age and color (which has to do with its class). By having the two other measurements, scientists can find the age of stars. What is exciting about this new method is that it works very well on stars like our sun, a feat that the other methods well bad at. Of course this is currently the only type of stars that the method is good for, but scientists expect this to change, and for this new method to useful for all stars. When the Keplar mission is up and running scientists will have plenty of data to work with, since one of the products of of looking for extrasolar planets (the purpose of the Keplar mission) is a very good measurement of the star's rotation. Color is easy to get from a telescope and often already known, so all of this new information is basically coming for free.