Current estimates of the age of our universe may be less than half, according to new research. The work was published in the journal. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. This new study shows that the current model we use for the aging of the universe is not only wrong, but data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope clearly disproves it.

The most dominant cosmological model encountered many problems, especially after James Webb began observing the universe. One of the biggest problems arose from what many call the “impossible early galaxy problem”. Basically, this problem arose when Webb noticed ancient galaxies that shouldn’t exist according to our current model.

When that happened, several opportunities arose. First, it’s possible that James Webb’s data is wrong and that the galaxy is indeed not as old or distant as first thought. However, based on redshift and everything else, that seems very unlikely. Another possibility was that the model we used to determine the age of the universe was wrong, or at least misinformed in some places.

The current model uses starlight redshift to determine the age and origin of our universe. So far, scientists have calculated this period and estimated it at about 13.797 billion years. However, a new model that attempts to solve the “impossible early galaxy problem” suggests that the universe is actually almost twice as old, about 26.7 billion years.

But why is it important? Well, the problem with newly discovered ancient early galaxies is that they appear more mature than they should be, just 300 million years after the Big Bang, which seems to indicate the galaxies’ redshift ages. However, with the updated lifespan doubling model, it makes more sense for these galaxies to mature.

Of course, this is not an exact science yet, and we are dealing with a lot of assumptions here. Unfortunately, this will always be the case in such sciences because we cannot go back in time and experience the Big Bang or any event that created our universe to see exactly how long ago it was.

Still, this new model could help us better predict the age of the universe; this will undoubtedly continue to be talked about as James Webb and others observe our universe as never before.