From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Thu Apr 25 2002 - 02:05:18 MDT
Universe 13 billion years old
By Penny Fannin
April 25 2002
The astronomical arguments about the age of the universe are over. It is 13
billion years old - give or take
a decimal point.
Early today NASA announced that by studying ancient burnt-out stars called
white dwarfs, which were
orbiting our Milky Way galaxy, a group of astronomers from five
universities had refined the universe's
birth date.
Brad Gibson, a professor in Swinburne University's centre for astrophysics
and supercomputing who was
part of the research team, said that by using the Hubble space telescope
astronomers had identified the
oldest stars in the oldest of the galaxy's star clusters.
He said the brightness of the stars indicated their temperature, which
was used to calculate their age. The stars were 12 billion years old and,
as earlier research had found that the first stars formed about one
billion years after the universe's birth in the Big Bang, the universe
must then be about 13 billion years old.
Many other estimates have been made but they have been flawed, he
said.
This story was found at:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/04/24/1019441263660.html
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