Is the Universe Showing Its Age?

By Jon Covey, B.A., MT (ASCP)
Edited by Anita K. Millen, M.D., M.P.H., M.A.

Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope have created a quandary for astrophysicists. Over the last few years, the contradictory conclusions of scientists measuring the rate the universe is expanding have produced a crisis in cosmology. Based on these measurements, the universe’s age is 8 to 16 billion years, with the most widely accepted age being about 13 billion years.

Globular clusters contain what appear to be the oldest stars. Until these most recent discoveries from the Hubble data, these stars were thought to be 16 to 18 billion years old. Most astronomers were fairly convinced of this age, but now this presents a big problem. How could these stars be older than the universe? Nothing existed before the Big Bang. Something had to give.

John Eddy, who probably regrets ever saying it, once said that with "frantic theoretical readjustment" if new evidence showed that astronomers have been wrong, they could live with Bishop Ussher's date of 4,004 B.C.

The new Hubble telescope observations suggest that the universe is younger than previously believed, and there has been some not so "frantic theoretical readjustment." Fortunately, the readjustment has to do with the age of the globular clusters. According to measurements from the European Space Agency’s Hipparcos star-mapping satellite, these ancient stars are actually closer to 12 billion years old, give or take 2 billion years, depending who does the measuring.

In March 1998, scientists confirmed that the farthest galaxy is 12.2 billion light years away. Although astronomers were leaning towards a 12 billion year old universe, they seem willing to accept anything between 8 to 16 billion years. Science News reporter Jensen says this distant galaxy is about 820 million years younger than the universe. This information will be reported in the May ‘98 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters. I wonder if Hugh Ross is still holding out for a 16 to 20 billion year-old universe.

The universe’s expansion is accelerating

The universe might be even younger, because Adam Reiss and his colleagues as the University of California, Berkeley have discovered that the expansion of the universe might actually be accelerating. This is probably the profoundest discovery since that of the 3° K background radiation supposedly left over from the Big Bang. The estimates on the age of the universe assume that after the Big Bang and the rapid expansion in the first fraction of a second, the universe has been expanding at a constant rate. Discovery of the expansion’s acceleration changes more than just age estimates. It also changes the size of the universe.

The effects of relativity and distant starlight

The Bible tells us God stretched out the universe. This means God expanded it. Perhaps that expansion might be perceived by some as a Big Bang and an expanding universe, the outermost regions of which were spread out faster than the interior. According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, the faster an object moves the more time slows down for that object. It is possible for an object not to experience any time if it moves at the speed of light. This seems weird, but perhaps that’s why light doesn’t age. Consider the relativity equation for time dilation.

Without actually solving the equation, one can see that if the velocity (v) of an object approaches the speed of light, (c), the denominator approaches zero. Time (t) then approaches zero. In other words, anything moving at the speed of light does not experience a change in time. The conclusion of special relativity is that something moving at the speed of light does not age.

When God stretched out the heavens, it is possible that our place in space just happened to be in an area that was moved at very near the speed of light. During those six days of creation, the slower part of the universe aged more rapidly. In fact, billions of years could have passed in some parts of the universe, while the region in which the earth moved experienced only six literal days. Since the stars were created on the fourth day, they didn’t begin aging until then. This means that most of the aging of the universe took place on creation days 4 through 6. On day six, the creation period ended. Someone remarked that I’m mixing general relativity with special relativity and makes this idea invalid. I would provisionally agree with him. However, with better articulation from someone well acquainted with special and general relativity, perhaps this idea can be salvaged or improved. I would greatly appreciate help with this. Email me at joncovey@mediaone.net

If earth is on the "edge" of the universe, we might be able to make a case for the earth’s relative youth compared to the rest of the universe. However, would supernova 1987a, only 170,000 light years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, experience enough of a time differential, relative to us so that its light would arrive here only 6-10,000 years later? We might not be able to explain such events within our galaxy through relativistic effects, e.g., a supernova 30,000 light years away. This needs to be explored by a worthy astrophysicist. Russell Humphreys’ Starlight and Time white hole cosmology still provides the best explanation for distant starlight, but creationists should continue to explore other possibilities.