I’m a bit confused by this article concerning controversy over a star that has been dated at 13.9 billion years, making it 200 million years than the actual universe that houses it.

However, buried in graf 5 we learn that the margin of error is 700 million years. At this point, the problem is solved:

1. The dating technique for the star comes up with 13.9 billion years, but the technique itself has known margins of error.
2. Since in this case, ages greater that 13.7 billion can be thrown out (barring extraordinary evidence to the contrary), we can safely date the star as between 13.2 and 13.7 billion years—or actually, 13.65, since IIRC that’s when the universe cooled off enough to allow the first stars to form.
3. Ergo, no mystery and no story. Unless, of course, it’s a story that sometimes science comes up with ranges of answers and has to self-correct.

For example, let’s say that my contempt for Kevin Lee’s reporting is 102%, plus or minus 7%. Since it’s not possible to hold someone in more contempt than my theoretical maximum, we can safely assume that I regard this article as between 95-100% contemptible, even though there’s a “mathematical” answer of 109% possible.