EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -The age of the universe based on the best fit to Planck 2018 data alone is 13.787±0.020 billion years. This number represents an accurate “direct” measurement of the age of the universe, in contrast to other methods which typically involve Hubble’s law and the age of the oldest stars in globular clusters.

Detailed explanation-2: -The scientists studied an image of the oldest light in the universe to confirm its age of 13.8 billion years. This light, the “afterglow” of the Big Bang, is known as the cosmic microwave background and marks a time 380, 000 years after the universe’s birth when protons and electrons joined to form the first atoms.

Detailed explanation-3: -The reason that we can claim the Universe is 13.8 billion years old to such enormous precision is driven by the full suite of data that we have. A Universe that expands more quickly needs to have less matter and more dark energy, and its Hubble constant multiplied by the age of the Universe will have a larger value.

Detailed explanation-4: -We do not know the exact age of the universe, but we believe that it is around 13 billion years-give or take a few billion. Astronomers estimate the age of the universe in two ways: (a) by looking for the oldest stars; and (b) by measuring the rate of expansion of the universe and extrapolating back to the Big Bang.

Detailed explanation-5: -The universe is only 13.8 billion years old, but we can see back 46.1 billion light-years. Here’s how the expanding universe does it. Artist’s logarithmic scale conception of the observable universe.