Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Astrophysics

Stellar clocks

Nature volume 517, pages 557–558 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

A link between rotation and age for Sun-like stars has long been known, but a stringent test of it for older stars has been lacking. The Kepler mission helps to fill this gap with observations of an old star cluster. See Letter p.589

The clocks of the cosmos tick constantly, but too softly for us to hear, and so we cannot directly measure the ages of stars. Yet we need good ages, because nearly every aspect of astrophysics deals with how things evolve with time. Even the Sun is silent on this score, and it is only from being able to study Solar System material — meteorites — in the laboratory that we know the Sun's age so exquisitely: 4,567±1±5 million years1. In this issue, Meibom et al.2 (page 589) describe a key step needed to obtain better estimates for the ages of cool, low-mass stars like the Sun.

Your institute does not have access to this article

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1

Jim Thommes

Notes

  1. See all news & views

References

  1. Chaussidon, M. in Lectures in Astrobiology: Volume II (eds Gargaud, M., Martin, H. & Claeys, P.) 45–74 (Springer, 2007).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  2. Meibom, S. et al. Nature 517, 589–591 (2015).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Soderblom, D. R. Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 48, 581–629 (2010).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Skumanich, A. Astrophys. J. 171, 565–567 (1972).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Kraft, R. P. Astrophys. J. 150, 551–570 (1967).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. David Soderblom is at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA.,

    David Soderblom

Authors
  1. David Soderblom
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Soderblom.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Soderblom, D. Stellar clocks. Nature 517, 557–558 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/517557a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/517557a

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing