Mixture of the Expanding Universe Theory and Tired Light Hypothesis Point Towards the Universe Potentially Being Twice as Old

(Photo : Unsplash / Andy Holmes)

"How old is the universe" is a question that was initially answered starting with the Big Bang, but a new study is suggesting that the universe could potentially be older than initially expected. This comes as the Expanding Universe theory was mixed with the tired light hypothesis.

How Old Is The Universe?

According to Science Alert, Rajendra Gupta, a theoretical physicist from Canada's University of Ottawa, says that what was previously referred to as a "retired cosmological theory" should have another chance. This theory tries to explain Universal anomalies, including the universe's beginning.

Gupta, in a report by uOttawa combined the existing Expanding Universe theory with the tired light hypothesis. This resulted in findings of how the Big Bang could've actually happened twice as old than initially believed.

The American Museum of Natural History reports that the Big Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago. However, Gupta's approach would suggest that the Big Bang actually happened 26.7 billion years ago, twice the current estimates.

The new suggestion does have advantages, like explaining why how a lot of distant galaxies that were under observation could look more mature than regular star cities that were only half a billion years old.

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Universe Age

Being able to figure out the age of the universe, as Science Alert points out, is very different from guessing a person's birthday. This is as objects go further, they turn redder in light patterns, which could explain space expansions and light waves stretching.

Redder light is then considered older light as it travels further into space and as it gains greater distance. Being able to work backward would help people get a better estimation of the light's growth rate.

Science Alert reports that it's possible for expansion to be used in order to compute the universe's compact volume related to its concentrated energy. However, another astronomer debates the notion that further light looks redder.

Fritz Zwicky, a Swiss astronomer, gave a suggestion in 1929 that light "lost its puff" because of how wide space was. This meant that lower energy resulted in lower frequency along with longer wavelengths, which caused bright, distant objects to shift in the spectrum.

Light Gets Tired

Zwicky's theory was that light basically became "tired" and that it lost its glow. This resulted in Zwicky later reaching a landmark discovery that established dark matter's great mystery. His hypothesis, however, did have many problems for it to be more accepted, resulting in the Expanding Universe theory as the choice pick.

Gupta recently published a book that suggested that the two concepts don't really have to be mutually exclusive. It was suggested that a combination could also help solve questions regarding the earliest galaxies and quasars which were estimated to be billions of years old.