Elapsed time since the universe began, measured in years.
- Measures
- The age of the universe: cosmic (proper) time elapsed for comoving observers from the hot Big Bang epoch to the present, as inferred within standard cosmology.
- Population
- The observable universe
- Conditions
- Present epoch; FLRW cosmic time
- Unit
- years
Most likely about 13,790,000,000 years; 90% interval 13,400,000,000 to 14,000,000,000 years.
Stated as a distribution, the precision the evidence supports. Sharply peaked near 13.8 billion years, with a modest lower tail for the possibility that the Hubble tension or evolving dark energy reflects physics beyond flat Lambda-CDM
Assessment
The graph's estimate, all things considered: the figures and arguments it rests on, and how they were combined.
The universe is about 13.8 billion years old, counted as cosmic time since the hot Big Bang. The Planck satellite's 2018 analysis of the cosmic microwave background gives 13.787 ± 0.020 billion years within flat Lambda-CDM. Independent CMB data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the South Pole Telescope agree to within a few hundredths of a billion years. The ages of the oldest stars, roughly 12.5 to 13.5 billion years for globular clusters and metal-poor stars, give a lower bound that does not depend on any cosmological model, and they fit that figure.
The main uncertainty is whether the model is right, not the precision of the measurement. Local measurements of the Hubble constant (about 73 km/s/Mpc) are higher than the CMB-inferred value (about 67.4). Read naively within Lambda-CDM, the higher value would imply an age nearer 12.5 to 13 billion years, which sits poorly with the stellar ages. Hints of evolving dark energy from baryon acoustic oscillation surveys would shift the age by only a percent or two. The 90% interval of 13.4 to 14.0 billion years is therefore much wider than Planck's statistical error and leans low. Proposals of about 26.7 billion years have no support from the evidence.
The work: which figures, how they were combined, and the arithmetic
Anchor: Planck 2018 VI (A&A 641, A6), Table 2: base Lambda-CDM age 13.787 ± 0.020 Gyr (68%, TT,TE,EE+lowE+lensing+BAO). Other Planck data combinations in the same table give 13.76 to 13.83 Gyr. ACT DR4+WMAP (2020) gives about 13.77 ± 0.04 Gyr. Stellar lower bounds: globular clusters about 13.0 ± 0.5 Gyr. Model allowance: with H0 = 73 and the CMB-fixed Omega_m h^2 held, the age falls to about 12.6 Gyr, but stellar ages disfavor this, so any resolution likely keeps the age within a few percent of the CMB value. Evolving-dark-energy fits move it by about 1 to 2%. Result: median 13.79 Gyr, 5th percentile 13.4, 95th percentile 14.0. This pass checked the Planck table against the paper and recorded the Planck and ACT figures. The estimate is unchanged from the previous pass.
Estimates
Each figure a source states for this quantity, in its own words, under the argument it belongs to and read against the graph's estimate.
Grey band: the graph's 90% interval, with its central value as a line. Dark marks: each source's own figure. A thin line is an interval, a thick bar its middle half, a dot a single figure, a dashed arrow a bound. An open box is where an argument places the value.
Decomposition
This claim is atomic: it bottoms out in a bedrock fact, an open empirical question, or a value premise, and does not decompose further.
Provenance
Where this quantity's evidence comes from. The figures sources state are under Estimates above.
Age [Gyr] ... 13.787 ± 0.020 (Planck TT,TE,EE+lowE+lensing+BAO, base ΛCDM, 68% limits)
New research suggest the universe is about 13.8 billion years old
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Contribution record · 1 exchange
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The submission asks "What is the age of the universe?", a neutral, well-formed question that anyone reasoning about cosmology would need to ask (§7a). It concerns no private person and is not loaded. It asks how long, so the Matcher should enter it as the quantity it asks about, or land it on an existing node if the graph already holds one. Novelty and identity are the Matcher's call, not the Reviewer's. No supporting argument was given, and none is required.
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Created by user · Nov 2, 2026. Every judgment on this page is accompanied by a reasoning trace.