New research from physicist Rajendra Gupta at the University of Ottawa (Canada) confirms that the universe may be twice as old as the previously estimated 13.8 billion years from a study in 2021, and this finding has gained widespread acceptance.
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Some very ancient galaxies have been recently discovered by James Webb – Photo: NASA/ESA/CSA.
This is based on the observations made by astronomers worldwide using increasingly advanced instruments, which have led to the discovery of objects that appear to be older than the universe itself. These are gigantic galaxies containing massive black holes, visible in regions of space when the universe was only a few hundred million years old.
These objects were detected using powerful telescopes like James Webb, capable of observing objects more than 13 billion light-years away from Earth, effectively allowing us to look straight into the past as the light from those objects took approximately that amount of time to reach the telescope.
Astronomers had expected to find simple, small primordial galaxies, not massive monsters like our Milky Way. To reach its present size, the Milky Way has undergone billions of years of mergers between galaxies.
A primordial galaxy of such a large size is implausible, as there wouldn’t have been enough time for such mergers to occur.
Dr. Gupta built upon a theoretical astronomy concept from 1929 proposed by astronomer Fritz Zwicky, which suggested that redshift is caused by light from distant objects losing energy as it travels through vast cosmic distances to Earth.
Subsequent studies revealed that redshift is due to the universe’s expansion, where celestial bodies are “running away” from us, making them appear redder.
Dr. Gupta proposed that redshift could be caused by both factors combined. He applied this idea to construct two universe models and demonstrated that the “supermonsters” observed by James Webb are indeed much older than the previously estimated 13.8 billion years.
According to his models, the universe is approximately 26.7 billion years old, nearly double the previous estimate.
This groundbreaking work was published in the scientific journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, and it could bring good news as a universe older than previously thought would mean that humanity still has the opportunity to continue advancing technology and searching for even more ancient worlds.