How old is the universe?

Answer 1

The short answer is 13.7 billion years old.

Zahbudar hasn't grasped that Big Bang Cosmology means that all parts of the universe started off from the same point in time and it is all of a single age.

Yes, individual stars may come and go, and some stars come along later than others, but the matter of which they consist, was all there from Day One. Some of it simply got recycled as Population III and Population II stars died and their atoms then got absorbed into the interstellar medium, from which new stars are formed.

It is the Steady State Cosmology with its mechanism of Continuous Creation. causing new matter to be created to fill in the gaps inbetween as older matter expands, that would have a variable age as between the different parts of the universe.

The age of the universe, in Big Bang cosmology, refers to the time elapsed between the Big Bang and the present day. Current observations suggest that this is about 13.7 billion years, with an uncertainty of about +/-200 million years.

Which means that our Sun, which is 4.57 billion years old did not form till over 9 billion years had already passed, and it has only existed for the lattermost one-third of the Universe's history to date. We are a bit of a Johnny Come Lately in cosmic terms, therefore.

But there are stars, eg our near neighbour, Barnard's Star, which is a red dwarf, believed to be about 11-12 billion years old, which are almost as old as the Universe itself. It may last another 40 billion years or more before cooling into a black dwarf.

Answer 2

It would be reasonable to guess that the Universe is at least twice as old as our Sun and Earth. However, we can't do radioactive dating on distant stars and galaxies. The best we can do is balance a lot of different measurements of the brightness and distance of stars and the red shifting of their light to come up with some ballpark figure. The oldest star clusters whose age we can estimate are about 12 to 15 billions years old.
So it seems safe to estimate that the age of the Universe is at least 15 billion years old, but probably not more than 20 billion years old.
This matter is far from being settled by astrophysicists and cosmologists, so stay tuned. There could be radical new developments in the future.

Answer 3

One respondant said 15 Billion Years...That is incorrect.

Parts of our Galaxy may be 15 Billion Years old, but we have no idea how old other parts of the Universe are.

Correct answer = UNKNOWN.

Answer 4

Most physicists believe that the universe is 13.7 billion years old.

Answer 5

42

Answer 6

it is about 15 billion years old

Answer 7

i think its about 13 billion years old according to scientists

Answer 8

the universe is about 6,000 years old

Answer 9

734,784,989,758,783,814,728,949,025,903,859,058,903,859,435,787,589,284,290,358,920,385,903,258,903,457,894,575,790,835,093,457,890,758,957,893,475,893,479 years old. Pretty Old.

Answer 10

Its like the question"Why does pop corn pop?"
ANS "WHO CARES"