A scientific study offers a surprising conclusion about the age of the universe

New calculations have shown that the universe could have two billion years less than the current estimate of scientists, and even smaller than two other calculations (published this year) that cut hundreds millions of years in the universe.

The dramatic fluctuations in the scientists' estimates reflect different approaches to the difficult problem of knowing the true age of the universe.

"We have a lot of uncertainty about how stars move in the galaxy," said Inh Gee of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, lead author of the study, published in the journal Science.

Scientists estimate the age of the universe using the movement of the stars to measure its speed of growth. If the universe is expanding rapidly, it means that it has reached its current size faster and therefore needs to be relatively younger.

The rate of expansion, called Hubble's constant, is one of the most important figures of cosmology. As the Hubble constant grows, the universe appears younger.

The generally accepted universe dates back 13.7 billion years, based on the 70-year-old Hubble constant.

The G team has reached the Hubble constant at 82.4, which would set the age of the universe at 11.4 billion years.

He used a concept called gravitational lens – where gravity deforms light and makes distant objects closer. Researchers used a special type of effect called a delayed-lens, which uses a variable brightness of distant objects to gather information to calculate.

But G's approach is just one of many new approaches that have led to different numbers in recent years, reopening a horrendous astronomical debate in the 1990s that seems to have been settled.

The astronomer Avi Loeb of Harvard, who did not participate in the study, said it was an interesting and unique way to calculate the rate of expansion of the universe, but that large margins of error limit its effectiveness and the possibility of collecting more information.

Source: Daily Mail

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