Study finds the universe might be 2 billion years younger

[Eugene]

Source: Phys.org

SEPTEMBER 12, 2019

Study finds the universe might be 2 billion years younger

by Seth Borenstein

The universe is looking younger every day, it seems.

New calculations suggest the universe could be a couple billion years younger than scientists now estimate, and even younger than suggested by two other calculations published this year that trimmed hundreds of millions of years from the age of the cosmos.

The huge swings in scientists' estimates—even this new calculation could be off by billions of years—reflect different approaches to the tricky problem of figuring the universe's real age.

"We have large uncertainty for how the stars are moving in the galaxy," said Inh Jee, of the Max Plank Institute in Germany, lead author of the study in Thursday's journal Science.

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Read more: https://phys.org/news/2019-09-universe-billion-years-younger.html

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Related:
• A measurement of the Hubble constant from angular diameter distances to two gravitational lenses (Science)
• An expanding controversy (Science)

[ret5hd]

1. Nahhh...just a little Botox around Uranus.

[lordsummerisle]

2. Well the trend sounds about right

Trump just averred today, when discussing clean air and water, that there was no one living here 25 years ago...

[Loki Liesmith]

3. Which might help resolve the Fermi paradox

[cstanleytech]

4. No, not even close. There are still a number of reasons why we have not seen any signs of

other advanced civilizations.
Two of the biggest are
#1 No way to shorten the time it takes to travel from one solar system to another to make the travel time reasonable.
#2 The low probability that any species nearby in our galaxy will have evolved, created a interstellar civilization and still be around now along with our own.

Oh I know, then why have we not found a automated system designed to communicate with a message from an extinct civilization?
Well first the civilization would have to find a way to send the message.
So lets say they did it with probes? Well the probes would have to be able to survive the ravages of time from causing them to cease to function until a civilization evolves that can hear the message.
They probably could last for awhile but millions or billions of years for an advanced civilization to evolve?
Very unlikely.

[qazplm135]

5. I personally think one underlooked answer

is that it just takes this long to get intelligent life.

You need a star with heavy metals, which means at LEAST a second generation star, possibly a third. So there's a few billion years right there.
You need at least a few more billion years for life to evolve and for the heavy bombardment stage to be over to allow life time to develop sufficient intelligence (sorry dinos).

A few billion here, a few billion there, and pretty soon you are not too far off from the age of the universe, which makes me wonder if we are "alone" because we are one of the first. Who knows, maybe not...but maybe.

[cstanleytech]

7. That assumes all life that evolves starts the same as on our planet though.

Plus not all planets that do evolve life will have the same number of mass extinctions as some will have more and some will have less and even then life on those worlds will react to it differently with some species potentially evolving faster.

[qazplm135]

8. Or maybe we are extraordinarily fast

Regardless, I suspect at a minimum you need time for a second generation star and several billion years after that.

I'm simply suggesting there's a lot we don't know and it's one possibility that we are one of the first.

[FiveGoodMen]

6. Within the last couple of years, I've heard physicists claim that it's 13.8 give or take .1

Someone or other has been projecting a great deal of unwarranted confidence.

[Layzeebeaver]

9. Confidence...

Is a probability based on current information.

As we get more information it can have a positive or negative effect on the confidence.

Science is a long game. Let’s give it another century or two before we start making rash judgements.