A team of astronomers from the Canadian University of Ottawa has concluded that the age of the universe may be twice as old as current estimates. to examine them In Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, published in its July 7 issue.

In 2021, astrophysicists estimated the age of the universe to be about 13.797 billion years, but the newly discovered model extends the formation time of galaxies by billions of years, making them think the age of the universe is about 26.7 billion years, unlike previously estimated.

A New Cosmic Model

Just Press release Published by the University of Ottawa, scientists have reached new estimates of the age of the universe according to the cosmological model included in their study, a new model that revises the current prevailing opinion and sheds light on the so-called “impossible early galaxy problem” observed by the James Webb Space Telescope.

Astronomers and physicists have been calculating the age of the universe for years by measuring the time elapsed since the Big Bang, studying the oldest stars based on the redshift of light from distant galaxies, and estimating the rate at which they are receding. The longest red wavelength due to the expanding universe is a phenomenon similar to how sound frequency changes if the source and observer are relative to each other.

In 2021, due to new technologies and technological progress, the age of our universe is estimated to be 13.797 billion years, using the Lambda-CDM harmonic model, which attempts to explain many phenomena of the universe. It agrees with astronomical observations that provide a description of the state of the universe.

According to the process of studying ancient stars based on the red shift of light from distant galaxies, the presence of stars like “Methuselah,” a solar-mass star about 190 light-years from Earth, has puzzled scientists, the university report added.

On the other hand, many scientists have expressed their confusion about these early galaxies, known as improbably early galaxies, which appeared 300 to 400 million years after the Big Bang, but appear to have the maturity and mass levels typically associated with billions of years of cosmic evolution.

tired light

In this study, the researchers developed hybrid models that incorporate an understanding of “exhausted light theory” in the expanding universe, according to the press release.

“Tired light” is a class of hypothetical redshift mechanisms proposed in the 20th century by the Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky as an alternative explanation for the reddening-distance relation.

Zwicky says that if photons lose their energy over time by colliding with other particles, distant objects appear redder than nearby objects, and then the red shift of light from distant galaxies is due to photons gradually losing energy over vast cosmic distances.

Coupling the “exhausted light theory” with an expanding universe makes it possible to recast the redshift as a hybrid event, and not due to expansion, says Rajendra Gupta, associate professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, the study’s lead researcher.

In addition to Zwicky’s tired light theory, the study also hypothesizes that the interpretation of the “cosmological constant,” which refers to the undetected dark energy responsible for the universe’s rapid expansion, needs to be revised.

The cosmological constant is one of the “coupling constants” proposed by the British physicist Paul Track, fundamental physical constants that govern the interactions between particles. According to Track, those constants may have changed over time, and by allowing them to evolve, the time span for the formation of early galaxies observed at high redshift with the James Webb Telescope could be extended from a few hundred million to billions of years.