Researchers at the Max Planck Society in Germany have said the cosmos is expanding faster than previously believed, leading them to believe the universe is significantly younger. But some are skeptical of the findings.
Image: picture-alliance/Zuma/ESA/Hubble
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The universe is expanding much quicker than previously thought, according to researchers in Germany, leading scientists to suggest it may be more than 2 billion years younger than past estimates.
Its age may have to be trimmed to less than 12 billion years, rather than prior projections of 13.8 billion.
Astrophysicists approximate the age of the universe by using the movement of stars to calculate how fast it is expanding. If the universe is expanding faster than previously thought, that means it got to its current size quicker and therefore must be younger.
"We have large uncertainty for how the stars are moving in the galaxy," said Inh Jee of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany and lead author of the study published Thursday in the journal Science.
Past estimates on the universe's age were based on a Hubble Constant, or expansion rate, of 70. Jee's team of researchers, however, came up with 82.4, which would put the age of the universe at around 11.4 billion years.
A look back at Hubble's best images
For 30 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has been providing us with breathtaking images from distant corners of the universe. Here's a look back at some of its finest pictures.
Image: NASA/Newscom/picture alliance
Computer glitch solved
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope wasn't able to send images between June 13 and July 15, 2021. A faulty computer memory system halted the telescope's operations. Only retired NASA experts managed to get it working again. For more than three decades, Hubble has provided fascinating images of distant stars and galaxies.
Image: ESA
Stars are born
This is one of the most photogenic examples of the many turbulent stellar nurseries the Hubble Space Telescope has observed during its lifetime. The portrait features the giant nebula NGC 2014 and its neighbor, NGC 2020, which together form part of a vast star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This satellite galaxy of the Milky Way is approximately 163,000 light-years away.
Image: NASA/ESA/TScI
Better than 'Star Wars'
Just as a new episode of "Star Wars" hit cinemas in 2015, Hubble took this picture of a cosmic lightsaber. The celestial structure is located about 1,300 light-years away. It's the birth of a star system — two cosmic jets beaming outward from a newborn star and some interstellar dust. The space telescope takes breathtaking pictures. Here are some more …
Image: NASA/ESA/Hubble
Eyes in space
Since 1990, the king of all space telescopes has been orbiting Earth at a speed of over 17,000 miles per hour (27,000 kilometers per hour) and an altitude of 340 miles (550 kilometers). Hubble is 11 meters (36 feet) long and weighs 11 metric tons (12.2 US tons), making it comparable in weight and size to a school bus.
Image: NASA/Getty Images
Scoping out cosmic bubbles
Hubble has helped us understand the birth of stars and planets, approximate the age of the universe and examine the nature of dark matter. Here we see a gigantic ball of gas created by a supernova explosion.
Image: AP
Fleeting colors
Different gases emit all kinds of different colors. Red, for instance, is a sign of sulfur. Green is hydrogen. And blue is oxygen.
The first pictures Hubble sent back were a catastrophe, however, because its main mirror had been ground to the wrong shape. In 1993, Space Shuttle Endeavor took experts to Hubble to fix the problem, giving it a pair of glasses. That was just one of five updates the telescope has received over the years, the last one coming in 2009.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Nasa
Space kindergarten
Hubble took this amazing picture in December 2009. The blue dots are very young stars, just a few million years old. This kindergarten of stars is found in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby galaxy, and a satellite of our Milky Way.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Nasa
Butterfly?
How about this snapshot from space? Nobody really knows what exactly Hubble had in its lens here, but that doesn't mean the shot is any less stunning. This image is just one of over 30,000 that Hubble has captured for the ages.
Image: NASA/ESA/ Hubble Heritage Team
Divine sombrero
This virtually transcendent photograph is — like most Hubble images — a composition of many single shots. The Sombrero Galaxy is an unbarred spiral galaxy in the Virgo constellation and is located a mere 28 million light-years from the Earth.
Image: NASA/ESA/ Hubble Heritage Team
Hubble in the flesh
The telescope was named after the American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953). He was the first person to observe that the universe is expanding. With this finding, he paved the way for our current cosmological understanding of the Big Bang as initiator of the universe.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Pillars of Creation
These column-shaped structures are found in the Eagle Nebula, around 7,000 light-years away from Earth. They were documented by Hubble and have received worldwide recognition under the name "Pillars of Creation."
Image: NASA, ESA/Hubble and the Hubble Heritage Team
In the starting blocks
Hubble is going strong, again. Due to its constantly sinking orbit, however, the telescope may reenter the Earth's atmosphere in 2024 and burn up. But its successor is already set: James Webb, being tested inside a thermal vacuum chamber here, is scheduled to be launched this year. Its workplace will be about 1.5 million kilometers (932,000 miles) from Earth.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Nasa/Chris Gunn
Space smiley
This, by the way, is another one of Hubble's creations — a space smiley! The easy explanation? It was made by bending light.
Image: PD/NASA/J. Schmidt
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Large margin of error
However, Jee only used two gravitational lenses for the research, which were all that were available, meaning her margin of error is so large that it's possible the universe could be older than calculated, not younger.
The limitations has some experts questioning the findings.
Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb told The Associated Press it was an interesting and unique way to work out the universe's expansion speed, but more information was necessary to add weight to the evidence.
"It is difficult to be certain of your conclusions if you use a ruler that you don't fully understand," Loeb said.
Adam Riess, who won a 2011 Nobel Prize for research on the age and expansion rate of the universe, as well as the discovery of "dark energy," told the AFP news agency that Thursday's study lacked accuracy.
"I don't think this adds much to the present state of affairs. Still, it's nice to see people look for alternative methods," he said.