How old is this Universe we live in ? How long have the particles and atoms collided, exchanged energies, and gone about their quantum business? The guesses have ranged from the few hundred billion years that redefine antiquity, to the ridiculous and laughable 6000 years.
And what does the scientific community do when that happens ? We build, specifically, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). And we measure, specifically, the patterns of background cosmic radiation. I am tempted to say that this is like counting rings in a piece of wood – but I wouldn’t be doing justice to the feat.
This is the background energy distribution of the Universe – the very essence of reality that we live in. Mark Dragovan and Jeffrey Peterson observed it first using a small radio telescope. In a moment of enlightened humility, they called it “The Face of God”.
The 5–year wait is over. The data and findings from the WMAP, have been released. We now know for a fact the following :
1. The Universe is flat to an accuracy of 2 degrees in curvature.
2. The Universe is 13.73 billion years old, give or take 120 million.
3. The Universe is cold , with an average temperature of 2.725K, or roughly -271 deg Celsius
4. With our telescopes, we can see less than 5% of the Universe, we are missing the rest : 72.1 % of which is dark energy, 23.3% of which is dark matter.
5. Space expands, objects in it do not.
For a bunch of other cool things that we now do know, you can visit the technical resource.
I beleive the matter is laid to rest, the creationists have to invent another theory now, or it least pre-pone the alleged date of creation.
