One problem with working out the age of the universe is trying to find out which came first — the stars or the universe that contains them.

In 2013 researchers associated with the Planck space observatory measured the age of the universe at 13.82 billion years.

That same year researchers grappled with the age of the Methuselah Star (HD 140283), located 190 light years away from the Earth in the constellation Libra. A study published in the Journal of Astrophysics placed the age of the Methuselah Star at about 14.46 billion years old.

That makes the star about 640 million years older than the universe in which it exists.