The universe is assumed to be roughly 13.7 billion years old, but a stunning new study says it could be significantly younger than that — by a couple of billion years.
According to the study, researchers used new calculations that took different approaches to figure out just how old the universe really is.
“We have large uncertainty for how the stars are moving in the galaxy,” the study’s lead author, Inh Jee, of the Max Planck Institute, told the Associated Press. The research has been published in Science.
Need to understand that radiated frequencies appear and can travel independent of source. Additionally, we can only measure what we can see of the observable universe. Some of the radiated frequencies we are could have been travelling for trillions of years prior to coming into our view within our observable universe. Measuring the redshift wave lengths or changing brightness of deep space light can only provide us a window into the distance we can perceive from within our observable universe; which appears to be about 14 billion years, give or take a few billion.
Example: As light waves or radio frequencies travel independent of their source and make there way into our observable universe, we have a limited expectation of when and where they began. As the light of our galaxy travels beyond our observable universe, other radiated signals from beyond our observable universe are free to enter.
Remember to qualify measurements as not to the age of the universe, but to what we can see.