The dominant stellar population of the central bulge of the Milky Way is old , with roughly solar metallicity .
The age is very similar to that of the old metal rich bulge globular clusters and to 47 Tucanae , which has an age of 13 Gyr .
Stellar composition measurements from Keck/HIRES confirm that bulge stars are enhanced in Mg and Ti .
New HST/NICMOS data are consistent with an old stellar population dominating the central 100 pc of the Milky Way .

New infrared photometry has been reported for the bulge of M 31 .
Although bright asymptotic giant branch stars are observed in the infrared , the data are most consistent with an old stellar population .