New telescope findings suggest universe is older by double what scientists thought

New findings captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) suggest the universe is older by almost double what scientists previously thought.

For years, cosmologists thought the universe was around 13.8 billion years old.

But new research suggests the universe could actually be 26.7 billion years old which takes into account new findings from observations seen through the JWST.

The presence of 'impossible early galaxies', named because of their strange formation periods, are said to have emerged during the cosmic dawn, roughly 500-800 million years after the Big Bang, according to existing models.

A theory known as the 'tired light' theory suggested light loses energy during its long cosmic journeys, leading to redshift, where light experiences frequency shifts, and this indicates a celestial body moving away from us.

But as it's not been able to explain a number of observations, this theory was largely dismissed.

New findings suggest the universe is almost double the age than what scientists previously thought / Freder, iStock

Rajendra Gupta, from the University of Ottawa, said: "I attempted to marry the conventional big-bang model with the tired light theory, hoping to account for both supernovae and JWST data. While this expanded our universe's age to 19.3 billion years, it couldn’t entirely account for the JWST data."

So, combining the 'tired light' theory with an evolving cosmological model based on the evolving coupling constants, this new model accounted for new observations seen from the JWSR which raised the universe's age to 26.7 billion years.

Although the Hubble Space Telescope had already guessed the 'impossible early galaxy' issue, the JWST has strengthened these claims.

This could help scientists with future research such as recalculating the data of how old emerging planets are.

The findings have been reported in a paper in the Astrophysical Journal.

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