An axiom of the very thing which is in question[namely the universe] is that you cannot be older than the thing that came before you. Hence, the world cannot be older than the solar system, nor the solar system…than the galaxy, etc.

Research conducted by the OSR into this very conundrum has found that, with the oldest stars being dated at fifteen billion years of age, and the universe at only nine to twelve, a paradox surely exists.

In fact until fairly recently, most cosmologists and astronomers considered the age of the universe to be between ten and twenty billion years. However, with the launch of the Hubble space telescope, new information is being collected that now supports an age for the universe at between twelve and thirteen billion years.

This is based on the caveat that, if the universe began as a big bang, and as such, propelled matter outward, then its expansion should be moving at an ever slower rate. I.E., the slower it is moving now, the longer ago it occurred.

However, observations made of the universe show it to be moving away at the same rate and speed…in all directions. That is to say that, the galaxies observed are moving away from our own…and each other, expanding outward at the same proportion.

Edwin Hubble proposed a mathematical equation[hereunto referred as the Hubble Constant] for the measurement of velocity of an object by its Red Shift. The further toward the red wavelengths of the spectrum the faster the object is moving.

In the past, a class of stars called Cepheid Variables were used as reference points. This because they were stars of greater mass than that of Sol and got brighter and dimmer in a regular pattern of between two and one hundred days.

The problem, they were only useful for nearby galaxies, those within eighty million light-years. Thus, once more was the Hubble put to use. From observations made using the Hubble, there are presently two values for the constant; The first, seventy-three, translates to an age for the universe at between nine and eleven and a half billions years. The second, fifty-eight, equal to eleven and a half to fourteen and a half billion years.

Yet even these figures may not tell the whole story, nor may they even be correct. However, as technology advances, new methods are being found to answer[once and for all]the age of the universe. When that day comes, certain ideas of the first moments of the big bang may need to be revised.