Study finds the universe might be 2 billion years younger

The universe is looking younger every day, it seems. New calculations suggest the universe could be a couple billion years younger than scientists now estimate, and even younger than suggested by two other calculations published this year that trimmed hundreds of millions of years from the age of the cosmos.

This image made available by the European Space agency shows galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2012,
an improved version of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image. A study from the Max Planck Institute in Germany
uses a new technique to come up with a rate that the universe is expanding that is nearly 18% higher
 than the number scientists had been using since the year 2000 [Credit: NASA, ESA,
R. Ellis (Caltech), HUDF 2012 Team via AP]

The huge swings in scientists' estimates — even this new calculation could be off by billions of years — reflect different approaches to the tricky problem of figuring the universe's real age.

"We have large uncertainty for how the stars are moving in the galaxy," said Inh Jee, of the Max Plank Institute in Germany, lead author of the study in the journal Science .

Scientists estimate the age of the universe by using the movement of stars to measure how fast it is expanding. If the universe is expanding faster, that means it got to its current size more quickly, and therefore must be relatively younger.

The expansion rate, called the Hubble constant , is one of the most important numbers in cosmology. A larger Hubble Constant makes for a faster moving — and younger — universe.

The generally accepted age of the universe is 13.7 billion years, based on a Hubble Constant of 70.

Jee's team came up with a Hubble Constant of 82.4, which would put the age of the universe at around 11.4 billion years.