It seems to me that if we have not observed any red dwarf stars with zero metal content, then we have indeed observed red dwarf stars that have moved off the main sequence and we are still left with the puzzle of determining the precise age of the universe. About all we can say for certain is that the universe should be much older than the estimates that are popular at the moment.

The reason I bring this up is because I cannot imagine how you find a red dwarf that has gone cold. It seems unlikely that they would become white dwarfs harboring degenerate matter. This is a case of an absence of something indicating a condition we have failed to properly conisider.

I disagree with this statement: Red dwarfs never initiate helium fusion and so cannot become red giants Red giants, at least as expected with Sun-like stars, occur before the initiation of helium fusion, with shell hydrogen fusion. Although it might take more-then-the-current-age-of-the-Universe for red dwarfs to reach the point of having an inert helium core, I could imagine this state of affairs, at least with the bigger end of red dwarfs. Does anyone have any better information? Joffan 19:02, 16 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Stars of extremely high mass that burned out quickly, by cosmological standards, and thereby created all the metals needed for the current crop of Population II and Population I stars. Shouldn't this have left us with a very high number of neutron stars, magnetars, and black holes? Wouldn't the consequences of having a large number of such objects around be rather serious?

Here, I am not criticizing Wikipedia as this seems to be an accurate exposition of current theory. Nevertheless, I do have serious misgivings about the theory. Granted, Astronomers, Astrophysicists, and Comologists need a theory to work with and from, but they seem terribly cocksure at times.

70.116.68.198 06:56, 1 January 2006 (UTC)Don Granberry.[reply]