Both methods are based on observations from deep space telescopes that look deep into space – and very far back in time. Even at the incredible speed of 186,000 miles per second, it still takes light a very long time to cross the universe.

Even the light from something as close as the sun (93 million miles away), take several minutes to reach the earth. When we look up at the Sun we are seeing where it was a few minutes ago.

So, when astronomers look deep into space they are also looking back in time.

Using telescopes like the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) – perched on a mountain high in Chile’s Atacama Desert, researchers can look all the way back to the first light of the universe created just after the ‘big bang’.

This light, known as the cosmic background radiation, is the glow as the newly formed universe (just a few hundred thousand years old) started to cool enough for sub-atomic particle to start coming together to form the first atoms.

Using recent observations from the ACT, scientists took measurements of the angle in the sky between two distant objects and also with the Earth to form a triangle.

Applying geometry to their data, they have determined that these objects at the edge of the universe show the universe to be 13.77 billion years old.

“The ACT result adds credence to the cosmic microwave background method, but there can still be systematic errors in both methods,” said Richard Barvainis, a program director in NSF’s Division of Astronomical Sciences.

“These will need to be corrected before agreement is reached, and that is part of the excitement of scientific research — to find the right answers to fundamental questions.”

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