Map Of The Universe
Q: How old is the universe?
A: 13.8 billion years old
Planck, the European space agency, in cooperation with NASA have created a detailed map of the universe. “Astronomers worldwide have been on the edge of their seats waiting for this map,” said Joan Centrella, Planck scientist. “These measurements are profoundly important to many areas of science, as well as future space missions.”
“The Planck map reveals not only the very young universe, but also matter, including dark matter, everywhere in the universe.”
“You can see the seeds from which the Universe is come,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, the agency’s director general.
Findings:
- The universe appears to be 13.81 billion years old, slightly older than previous estimates.
- The universe also contains a bit more matter than previously thought. A new precision measurement based on Planck shows that ordinary matter – including atoms, stars, galaxies and everything else astronomers can observe directly – accounts for about 4.9 per cent of the energy content of the universe. Another 26.98 per cent is taken up by dark matter, which cannot be seen but only “felt” through its gravitational influence. The remaining 68.3 per cent is in the form of dark energy, a mysterious phenomenon thought to be causing the expansion of the Universe to accelerate.
- There are no signs for new, unknown particles of ordinary matter, such as new types of neutrinos, which have been proposed by some theories.