There are a lot of guesses as to how many years of the universe are at the moment. With absolute certainty, it is now impossible to answer the question of her age. Yes, and it is unlikely to ever be able to find an exact answer to it. But scientists conducted a lot of research and calculations, so now this topic has more or less clear outlines.
Definition
Before you start the story about how many years of the Universe, it is worth making a reservation: its age is counted from the moment when it began to expand.
To clarify these data, an ΛCDM model was created. Scientists claim that she can predict the moments of the beginning of various eras. But still, how many years of the Universe can be determined by finding the oldest objects, by calculating their age.
In addition, periodization plays a huge role. In our time, there are three eras about which certain information is known. The first is the earliest. It is called the Planck time (10 -43 s after the origin of the Big Bang). According to scientists, this period lasted up to 10 -11 s. The next era lasted up to 10 -2 s. It is characterized by the appearance of quark particles - this is a component of hadrons, that is, elementary particles involved in nuclear interactions.
And the last era is modern. It began 0.01 seconds after the Big Bang. And actually, the modern era continues to this day.
In general, according to modern data, the Universe is now 13.75 billion years old. Correction allowed (± 0.11 billion).
Cold Star Computing Methods
There is another way to find out how old the universe is. And it consists in monitoring the glow of the so-called white dwarfs. They are very high temperature celestial bodies of rather small sizes. About the size of Earth. They represent the last stage of the existence of any star. With the exception of those that are gigantic in size. A star turns into a white dwarf after all of its thermonuclear fuel is burned. Before that, she still undergoes some cataclysms. For example, for a while it becomes a red giant.
And how can you find out how old the universe is with the help of white dwarfs? Not to say that it’s simple, but scientists succeed. Dwarfs burn their hydrogen very slowly, so their life span can reach hundreds of millions of years. And all this time they shine thanks to the accumulated energy. And in parallel they cool down. And scientists, calculating the rate of their cooling, determine the amount of time that the star needs to lower the temperature from the one that was the original (as a rule, it is 150,000 K). To calculate how many years the Universe exists, you need to find the coldest white dwarfs. At the moment, it was possible to find stars with a temperature of 4000 K. Scientists, having carefully studied all the data with this information in mind, claim that our Universe cannot be older than 15 billion years.
The study of spherical clusters from stars
It is worth turning to this method, telling about how many years of the universe, according to scientists. These clusters are located in the peripheral zone of the Milky Way. And they revolve around its core. And determining the date of their formation helps to find out the lower boundary of the age of our Universe.
The method is technically complicated. However, in its essence lies the simplest idea. After all, all clusters appear from one cloud. So they arise, one might say, at the same time. And for a certain time, hydrogen is burned in some quantities. How does it all end? The appearance of a white dwarf or the formation of a neutron star.
Several years ago, research of this kind was carried out by astronauts using the ACS camera of a space telescope known as the Hubble. So according to scientists, how old is the universe? Astronauts figured out the answer, and it matches official data. The age of the clusters they investigated averaged 12.8 billion years. The “oldest” turned out to be 13.4 billion.
About cosmic rhythms
Here, in general, what could be found out according to the calculations of scientists. It is impossible to know exactly how many years the universe is, but you can still find out approximate information by paying attention to cosmic rhythms. Their study was conducted by the Explorer 80 probe about 15 years ago. Temperature fluctuations and relict radiation were taken into account . If you do not go into details, we managed to find out that our universe is most likely 13.5-14 billion years old.
In general, everything may be far from what we assume. After all, space is an amazingly huge and almost unknown space. But the good news is that his research is actively ongoing.