Skip to comments.Study: Universe 13 Billion Years Old Posted on
04/24/2002 6:30:34 PM PDT by longshadow By Paul Recer AP Science
Writer Wednesday, April 24, 2002; 4:21 PM WASHINGTON The
universe is about 13 billion years old, slightly younger than
previously believed, according to a study that measured the
cooling of the embers in ancient dying stars. Experts said the
finding gives "very comparable results" to an earlier study that
used a different method to conclude that the universe burst into
existence with the theoretical "Big Bang" between 13 and 14
billion years ago. Harvey B. Richer, an astronomer at the
University of British Columbia, said the Hubble Space Telescope
gathered images of the faintest dying stars it could find in M4,
a star cluster some 7,000 light years away. Richer said the
fading stars, called white dwarfs, are actually burnt out coals
of stars that were once up to eight times the size of the sun.
After they exhausted their fuel, the stars collapsed into Earth-
sized spheres of cooling