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Space Science

Hubble Data Says Universe Is 14 Billion Years Old 43

Posted by michael from the elephants-all-the-way-down dept.
no reason to be here writes "New data from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that the age of the universe is approximately 14 billion years old. Read this press release for more info."
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Hubble Data Says Universe Is 14 Billion Years Old More

Hubble Data Says Universe Is 14 Billion Years Old

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  • What about life, the universe, and everything?

  • Happy Birthday! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Transcendent ( 204992 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @08:42PM (#3406164)
    finding the oldest stars puts astronomers well within arm's reach of calculating the absolute age of the universe

    ...May 14th?

    Well I have a 1/365 chance of that being right!

  • The Universe is dying (Score:4, Funny)

    by jbridge21 ( 90597 ) <jeffrey+slashdot AT firehead DOT org> on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @08:59PM (#3406268) Journal
    It is official; NASA confirms: the Universe is dying

    One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered scientific community when Berkeley confirmed that Universe inhabitability has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all stars. Coming on the heels of a recent NASA survey which plainly states that the Universe has lost more inhabitability, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The Universe is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by falling dead last in the recent Living Times comprehensive livability test.

    You don't need to be an Einstein to predict the Universe's future. The hand writing is on the wall: the Universe faces a dark future. In fact there won't be any future at all for the Universe because the Universe is dying. Things are looking very bad for the Universe. As many of us are already aware, the Universe continues to lose brilliance. Red dwarfs are flowing like a river of blood. The Milky Way is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core supergiants.

    Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

    Andromeda Galaxy leader Neo states that there are 7000 stars left in the Andromeda Galaxy. How many livable planets in the Crab Nebula are there? Let's see. The number of Andromeda Galaxy versus Crab Nebula readings on SETI@HOME is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Crab Nebula inhabitable planets. Horseshoe Nebula readings on SETI@HOME are about half of the volume of Crab Nebula readings. Therefore there are about 700 inhabitable planets in the Horseshoe Nebula. A recent article put the Milky Way at about 80 percent of the Universe market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 inhabitable planets in the Milky Way. This is consistent with the number of Milky Way SETI@HOME readings.

    Due to the troubles of Grand Overlord Bush, abysmal immigration and so on, the Milky Way went out of business and was taken over by Virgo who sell another troubled galaxy. Now Virgo is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

    All major surveys show that the Universe has steadily declined in inhabitability. The Universe is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If the Universe is to survive at all it will be among interplanetary dilettante dabblers. The Universe continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the Universe is dead.

    Fact: the Universe is dying
    • We'll probably be very dead before the universe is. As such: I don't care.

      Of course, it could be argued that the matter of the universe will re-form into a big ball to start the cycle over again. I think there is some debate as to how likely that is. I suppose that thought is somewhat comforting.

      • (* We'll probably be very dead before the universe is. As such: I don't care....
        Of course, it could be argued that the matter of the universe will re-form into a big ball to start the cycle over again. I think there is some debate as to how likely that is. *)

        The best current estimate is that the Universe will continue to expand, and that several billions of years from now, inhabitants of our galaxy will only be able to see and access the galaxies within our "local cluster" and a few others IIRC (roughly about 50 galaxies?). The rest beyond that will eventually recede faster than the speed of light, riding on the expansion, so they are "gone" as far as we are concerned. But the local ones are gravitational buddies to end.

        50 galaxies is plenty to provide humans with enough energy for another 500 billion years or so (very rough guess).

        Thus, if we survive Earth's end and spread around to the nearby galaxies, we still have a lot of time.

        I just hope there is no intergalactic bomb that terrorists can use to wipe out the remaining galaxies. (Triggering a super-gamma burst by colliding black holes and super-stars may be a possible bomb.)

        I think terrorists and wars are the biggest threat, not the expanding universe. If anything, the expansion allows groups of humans to part such that groups can "ride out" the expansion so no terrorists can catch them. Groups can disappear beyond the "event horizon" of the expansion and never be touched again by outsiders as long as the speed of light cannot be surpassed.

        Thus, this limits the scope of people that big-time terrorists and wars can kill.

        IOW, expansion may be your distant offspring's best friend.

    • Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 inhabitable planets in the Milky Way.

      ...last time I checked, we were trying to count the number of habitable planets?
    • Yes, the universe is dying. Guess what, everything decays. It's a Law of Thermodynamics. Nothing every gets better when left to itself (that's the basics of it).

      Now about the age of the universe. I say it's about 6000 years old. There are sooo many flaws to saying the age of the universe of the earth though. I don't see how it could be 14 billion or whatever number they've made it now. The only sure way is if someone were there at the start. Scratch that one. Everything else is guess. No matter what you say it comes down to an issue of faith. There is NO possible way of proving the age of the universe or that there is or isn't a God. I believe there is a God. Maybe you believe in evolution. But based on what the Bible says AND science (yes, there is evidence of creation) I still say 6000 years. If anyone has any questions, my e-mail is:

      jared@neatorecords.org

  • Well (Score:3, Funny)

    by zulux ( 112259 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @10:32PM (#3406773) Homepage Journal
    I don't cary what you fancy-schmancy tele-scope in space says - Jack Chick [chick.com] says the this here universe is only 6000 years old.

    Excuse me, while I go back to the trailer.
  • Isn't there a fair possibility there are even cooler dwarfs out there? I mean, increasing exposure time is one thing, but if the amount of emitted energy by a star is very small, we should increase resolution to spot it.

    I just can't believe the researchers were capable of spotting EVERY white dwarf, especially the ones that emit the smallest amount of energy.
    • That is a possibility, however they haven't found any yet. Basically what they're saying now is that the maximum age based on data they have available. You can't scientifically say the universe is older based on data you don't have, and theories are *always* subject to change based on new data ;)

  • What the Hubble measured here was not the age of the universe, but the age of the oldest stars we've seen in it. Those stars were measured to be 12-13 billion years old, based on their temperature.

    Different Hubble measurements, based on redshifts, figure that the universe is 13-14 billion years old.

    This is good, because older calculations had suggested that the universe was actually younger than the oldest stars in it, which makes zero sense, and caused all sorts of wacky hypotheses.

    Since the first stars would have formed about 1 billion years into the universe's formation, it means that we have rough agreement (to, uh, one significant figure) between two independent calculations on the age of the universe. Actually, a lot of other theories come into play here, including a very complicated model of how white dwarfs work.

    So this measurement provides evidence for a whole host of theories. I love it when a plan comes together.
  • The Hubble telescope can talk? I've never heard of a talking telescope before. Forget all of the mechanical problems, those guys who engineered Hubble really DID know what they were doing!
  • if he is in line with the Word of God. I haven't seen him err from the path. You might have faith in your theories but I have faith that what God says is true. Namely, salvation comes thru Christ Jesus. The C-14,universe's age,limits of universe questions are not what is more important. The most important question is Do you absolutely know that you know where you are going(if anywhere) after you die? Do you think your soul just....ceases to exist??? Don't take a gamble my friends. Jesus(God in the flesh) died on the cross and took on our sins(wages of sin is death((hell)) so that we wouldn't have to go to hell. Heaven is attainable, very much so...but only thru Christ. Being a 'good person' isnt' enough else why would the Lord die on the cross for our sins? It even says : Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. How do i get saved? Romans 10 9That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame."[1] if you believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sins, realizing that you alone can't be saved, if you do this and confess Him as lord you are saved!! lilmacumd@yahoo.com email me if you'd like
    • Religion and spirituality, like most things, must be tailored to the audience for which it is intended. Thousands of years ago, a relatively primitive uneducated audience needed simple, unambiguous messages from an authoritarian source in order to maintain social cohesion and better withstand intergroup competition.

      Perhaps things aren't so different today - many people, while benefitting from more widespread, comprehensive education, still haven't received much meaningful religious or spiritual education. Spiritual education is where sex education was fifty years ago, one of the last bastions of ignorance in modern civilization.

      But nevertheless, the audiences for spiritual messages cover an enormous spectrum, ranging from those who still seem to need the simple messages from thousands of years ago, to those who are capable of understanding far more complex and ambiguous truths. It's difficult for these groups to communicate between each other, and most attempts to do so are futile - just as attempting to teach sub-atomic physics to a jungle-dwelling Aztec might be futile, or the Aztec's attempt to explain their theory of human sacrifice to us.

      The amusing thing is that we have to tolerate these spiritual cavemen, for their indocrinated beliefs are unshakeable; yet they continually attempt to "convert" us, demonstrating a lack of tolerance which actually goes against the religions they claim to espouse. I used to find this annoying, until you realize how truly sad it is.

      My heart goes out to anyone trapped in a network of 4000 year old propaganda, which is so closely enmeshed in our social structure that only the most intelligent and self-aware can find their way out of it - only to realize that it does perhaps serve a strange social purpose, and that we don't really have any good candidates to replace it. Ah, the human condition...

      But hey, at least we know that the universe is 14 billion years old - that's something, right? Sigh... :)

  • VLT (Score:1)

    by edwilli ( 197728 )
    I wonder what "light" the VLT [eso.org] will shead on this once the interferometer is fully operational.

    Does anyone know? Can the VLT be used to gather this kind of data?
  • Just wait a few months and some astronomer is going to say X billion years.

    The "universe younger than stars" was funny tho. Dunno why they threw that one out ;).

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