13.73 Billion Years – The Most Precise Measurement of the Age of the Universe Yet

by Ian O'Neill on March 28, 2008

The WMAP observatory (credit: NASA)
NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has taken the best measurement of the age of the Universe to date. According to highly precise observations of microwave radiation observed all over the cosmos, WMAP scientists now have the best estimate yet on the age of the Universe: 13.73 billion years, plus or minus 120 million years (that’s an error margin of only 0.87%… not bad really…).

The WMAP mission was sent to the Sun-Earth second Lagrangian point (L2), located approximately 1.5 million km from the surface of the Earth on the night-side (i.e. WMAP is constantly in the shadow of the Earth) in 2001. The reason for this location is the nature of the gravitational stability in the region and the lack of electromagnetic interference from the Sun. Constantly looking out into space, WMAP scans the cosmos with its ultra sensitive microwave receiver, mapping any small variations in the background “temperature” (anisotropy) of the universe. It can detect microwave radiation in the wavelength range of 3.3-13.6 mm (with a corresponding frequency of 90-22 GHz). Warm and cool regions of space are therefore mapped, including the radiation polarity.

This microwave background radiation originates from a very early universe, just 400,000 years after the Big Bang, when the ambient temperature of the universe was about 3,000 K. At this temperature, neutral hydrogen atoms were possible, scattering photons. It is these photons WMAP observes today, only much cooler at 2.7 Kelvin (that’s only 2.7 degrees higher than absolute zero, -273.15°C). WMAP constantly observes this cosmic radiation, measuring tiny alterations in temperature and polarity. These measurements refine our understanding about the structure of our universe around the time of the Big Bang and also help us understand the nature of the period of “inflation”, in the very beginning of the expansion of the Universe.

It is a matter of exposure for the WMAP mission, the longer it observes the better refined the measurements. After seven years of results-taking, the WMAP mission has tightened the estimate on the age of the Universe down to an error margin of only 120 million years, that’s 0.87% of the 13.73 billion years since the Big Bang.

“Everything is tightening up and giving us better and better precision all the time [...] It’s actually significantly better than previous results. There is all kinds of richness in the data.” – Charles L. Bennett, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University.

This will be exciting news to cosmologists as theories on the very beginning of the Universe are developed even further.

Source: New York Times

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  • wingtip

    …….well…….At least were not in texas!….

  • tacitus

    “I’m just trying to be objectionable”

    Then you’re obviously not trying hard enough, for I find nothing offensive about your comments… :)

  • Eric

    Offending somebody was not my motive, but I know some people think they’re being personally attacked if your opinion includes something different from what they deem as the truth.

  • Emission Nebula

    *sigh*. When did any of this become about religion? The old arguement of creationism vs. evolution is getting real old. I seriously think people need to stop worrying about it so much. The bible is not meant to be taken literally. And I admit too many religions try to argue that it should be taken as such. But for those of us who do belive in God, and have thought about beyond the “blind side” of churches preferences, one way is just not correct. Religion and evolution both have just quailities to them. And the science community is actually starting to become very communist about the whole thing. Believing in a Creator is now the new heresy of science. People are losng there jobs for such things now even.
    Dont believe in God? I really dont care. You do? I dont care either. But for the love of whatever it is you love, STOP FIGHTING ABOUT IT! Stop trying to turn a 13.7 billion year old universe as your arguement. Infact if you do a little research, youll find that it was a preist who worked for the Vatican that came up with the theory of a “beginning” to the universe. And the Catholic church actaully uses this theory for their beliefs. SOOOO, using this as your arguement isnt really going to work against religion.
    And Im not here to argue “God is the way”, Im argueing that a scientific finding like this is not the grounds to start an arguement against religion.

    And Im sure many will argue this too. Go ahead, tell me Im wrong. Everyone thinks they know everything. And while your on your high and mighty, know it all rant, just remember: you cant proove anything based on whats visable.

  • olga

    Emission Nebula,

    It is very pleasing to read that the US society is not only a place for extremists.

    Rather the Atheist part nor the creationist part has good arguments in their extremes.

    As a foreigner it is really funny to see a nation struggling so hard to get into the era of emlightenment.

    Plurality is what creates new ideas, but typically it is enough to spread some fear into US and they react like prehistorics.

    Real scientists easily can be sceptics, religious and non religious.
    There are epistemologic limits that no model will overcome – of course.
    And unless science or sciencebabble is no religion placebo this is no problem either.

  • Matt

    Sorry to be picky, but don’t you mean that the probe is in the shadow of the earth, not the sun?

    Seeing as it’s the brightest thing around, the sun isn’t likely to cast much of a shadow.

    :)

  • Emission Nebula

    I just really think creationism vs. evolution arguement is getting real old, real fast. Why cat we all just live our lives in peace? According to Richard Dawkins, a very well known Athiest, if there was no religion ther would be no wars. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. War nowadays are based on natural resourses and those who control it.

  • Eric

    Emission…R E L A X. Please.

    I feel like I’m more on Carl Sagan’s side of the argument. Basically, what he’s saying is, and I’m sure some if not most of the people reading this now know, there’s no reason why the universe couldn’t have been created by a supreme being and there’s no reason to believe that we’re the only living thing that said being created.

    No matter what the outcome of the scientific studies, I’m glad everything was created – regardless of origin. It would be very boring without any of this. If it turns out to be scientific – HOORAY! If it turns out to be not so much religious, but of divine creation – HOORAY! I’m happy to be alive in this universe.

  • tacitus

    Eric, I think you missed the tongue in cheek part of my post. In your original post you said: “I’m just trying to be objectionable“ when I believe you meant to say “I’m just trying to be objective“. That’s all.

    (It’s never as funny when you have to spell it out :) )

  • http://www.theopenfile.com Mikel

    To tacitus -

    I didn’t realize my lone comments about Dr. Arp constituted “the fringe out in force”.

    I find it interesting that a theory that does not agree with yours is called “fringe”. At least I gave a reference for someone to read up a little on Arp’s point of view…how about a link to a reference about your comment concerning quasars and host galaxies.

    - Mikel

  • Michael

    Thanks for sharing that now let us get on with the real task at hand: discovering or rediscovering ways to live as intelligent life.

  • eMJay

    I, for one, don’t think that the idea of a creator being can ever be discounted or proven by science. If a creator exists, he, or rather, it, would have existed before the universe was created, therefore somehow existing outside the universe itself. Since our science can only make measurements of phenomena inside the universe, it stands to reason that we will never truly be able to prove the existence or non-existence of a creator, since it may well truly be “outside the realm of science”.

  • Noosh

    Uh to be fair, Emission, Dawkins doesn’t state that “if there was no religion there would be no wars”. Have you actually read his book or are you just generalising?

    Rather, he lists a sizable number of wars which WERE fought on purely ideological religious grounds, which one would logically suppose wouldn’t have taken place did religion not exist.

    Sure, there’d still be wars over resources and race and whatever else but there’d be less wars than there are now.

    Eric, there are many reasons to suspect that the universe wasn’t created by a supreme being, even though I concede that it remains possible.

  • PHWilson

    Whew, time to drop the entire term “age of the universe”. Once said, it is as a toggle switch. Science…Religion…Science…Religion. I can’t remember the last time I actually read the OFF or ON printed on a light switch. Just work with the results, not argue which is best on top.

  • Chuck Lam

    I suspect the edge of the observable portion of our universe is about 13.73 billion light years distance in any direction we look. Why the same distance in every direction? Because a red-shift of one creates a threshold that we simply can not see beyond. I believe the day will come in our life time when all we will eventually see with new technology, is a black velvet-like nothing, and why? Because at that point the universal expansion, which I believe is a fact, will cause all matter that passed beyond this edge, due to the limitations of the speed of light, to no longer be visible. Are there a physical laws violated? I don’t think so. I believe what we call the observable universe is just an unimaginable small part of an unbounded whole. The universe is not open, closed, donut shaped or anything theological. It is an unbounded nothing.

  • James Lord

    If all matter and energy started at one point; how can we see outwardly to the edge, when we should be at that edge. Perhaps we are looking back; thinking we are looking out, as in an endless curve, like one would see if one could look at ones own reflection in an endless progression of mirrors, you looking back, at you looking back . Thus at some point causing a shift in spectral light and hence maybe a false but real shift in a sense of time..

  • Steve

    How can redshift both reveal how far something is and how fast it’s moving away? Wouldn’t that violate the uncertainty principle where you cannot both know somethings position and velocity at the same time?

  • http://astronomy.ksclub.org Mek

    I think the effect of the uncertainty principle as it relates to larger and larger objects decreases to the point where it is not measurable.

    Otherwise radar use in airports, military jets, police cruisers etc also wouldn’t be able to use the Doppler effect (which IIRC involves a shifting of frequencies as they are bounced off moving objects) to measure velocity and direction.

    Mikel, concerning Arp and him being fringe, a fringe opinion or theory is fringe by virtue of not being in the mainstream. Many of the currently accepted theories were at one time or another fringe, but that is no basis for deciding on their validity as for every fringe theory that is widely accepted there’s a hell of a lot of forgotten fringe theories that have fallen by the wayside.

  • Mikel

    To Mek…

    Yes, I agree with your definition of fringe, but I believe tacitus was using the word “fringe” when he was actually meaning “lunatic fringe”.

    In other words, he was being sarcastic, which just shows his bias.

  • lol

    FOR THE LULZ!

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