Big Bang, a conceptual image. A computer image representing the origin of the universe. The term … [+]
getty
The Earth is 13.77 billion years old.
That is the conclusion from a team of astronauts working 17,030 ft./5,190 meters above the Chilean Atacama Desert using a telescope to find the oldest light in the Universe.
Give or take 40 million years, ie
The European Space Agency’s Planck satellite measured the remnants of the Big Bang from 2009 through 2013 and came up with the same number – 13.77 billion years.
In 2019 a research team measuring the movements of galaxies determined that the Universe could be hundreds of millions of years younger.
So who is right? Why are there different ways to measure the expansion of the Earth giving different results?
This new measurement, made using the National Science Foundation’s (ACT) Atacama Cosmology Telescope, may confirm Planck’s calculations.
However, it may suggest that astronauts are nearing a new discovery in cosmology that could change our understanding of how the Universe works.
Why? Let’s take a look at what was found – and how.
Published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, this new research reaffirms a 13.77 billion year figure. “Now we have found an answer where Planck and ACT agree,” said Simone Aiola, a researcher at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics and the first author of one of two papers. “He says those difficult measurements are reliable. ”
National Science Foundation (ACT) Atacama Cosmology Telescope, a six-meter diameter telescope … [+]
M. Devlin. – M. Devlin, University of Pennsylvania CC BY-SA 4.0
To measure the age of the Earth it is necessary to work out how fast it is expanding.
That number is known as the Hubble Constant, named after the American astronaut Edwin Hubble in the 1920s that galaxies are moving away from the Earth.
To find out how fast that happens you need to select light anchors in the night sky, such as stars, galleries and global collections. This is called the cosmic distance ladder – you start nearby and move further out into the Universe, even though you only look at objects that became billions of years later. Universe itself.
These are called local Accurate measurements.
These local measurements usually lead to a larger Hubble Constant enumeration – and that means a faster Universe, and therefore a younger Universe.
The new study – and that by Planck – measures light from the far away Universe. The radiation left over from the Big Bang – the oldest light in nature – is called the cosmic microwave background (CMB).
The CMB shines lightly – a very long wave microwave radiation – which fills the Earth, and is strong evidence for the Big Bang theory.
It is much closer to the origin of the Earth than stars and galaxies.
The CMB is a picture of the oldest light in our cosmos, printed on the skies when the Universe … [+]
ESA / Planck collaboration
By unlocking the CMB in a higher resolution than ever before, the astronomers involved in this latest study were able to carefully study changes in the polarization of its light. They used the gap between these changes to work out how far light traveled from the CMB to reach the Earth – and thus to make a new estimate for the age of the Earth.
The study figure for the Hubble Constant suggests that a 1 megaparsec object (about 3.26 million light-years) from Earth is moving away from us at 67.6 kilometers per second. Planck found that the Hubble Constant was very similar to 67.4 km / s / Mpc in 2018, but the 2019 figure – derived from measurements of Cepheid variable stars – was at 74 km / s / Mpc. Another 2019 study using big red stars found that the Hubble Constant was at 69.8 km / s / Mpc.
Hubble Constant more means a faster-moving, and therefore younger, Universe.
“We found an expansion level that is exactly what the Planck satellite team estimates. This gives us more confidence in measuring the oldest light in the Earth, ”said Choi, who did not express any preference for a particular value. “It was going to be interesting one way or another,” he said.
This is the first time that two independent CMB measurements have found Hubble drugs consistently lower than local Global measurements.
The inconsistencies between estimates for the extent of Earth’s expansion – and therefore its age – indicate that astronomers may need a new interpretation of the Earth’s fundamental features.
Part of a new image of the oldest light in the universe taken by Atacama Cosmology … [+]
ACT collaboration
“The growing tension between these long, locally-opposed dimensions of a stable Hubble indicates that we may be close to a new discovery in cosmology that could shape our understanding of how the Universe is. working for change, ”said Michael Niemack, professor of physics and astronomy, and co-author of the two introductory papers.
The dimensions of the CMB and local factors may simply be a measure of fairness.
The ACT, a six-meter-diameter telescope on Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, will continue to make higher resolution measurements than CMB.
At the same time, NASA’s upcoming mission, the Wide Field Infrared Exploration Telescope (WFIRST), launched in the mid-2020s, will better examine Hubble’s sustainable value over cosmic time by collect more data on new Type Ia supernovae, Cepheid variables, and large red stars to fundamentally improve distance measurement to nearby galaxies.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.