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To: LibWhacker
Just two weeks ago astronomers announced they had discovered the oldest galactic cluster yet, 13.5 billion light years distant. It took at least a billion years for such clusters to form after the Big Bang, putting the age of the Universe at no less than about 15 billion years old. But I do love these contradictions!

It is only a contradiction if you ignore the measurement errors in BOTH. We already know the WHite dwarf methodology has an acknowledged error of 0.5 billion years. We don't know the error estimate for the observation in your linked article because it does mention it, but let's use 5% as a round number.

Taking the White dwarf estimate to it's upper most value (13.7 billion + 0.5 billion) yeilds 14.2 billion years. Taking your estimate of 15 billion years and using the minimum value based on a 5% measurement error, yeilds 14 and a quarter billion years.

Both measurements are within their error limits of each other.

In conclusion, there is no contradiction.

102 posted on 04/24/2002 9:21:02 PM PDT by longshadow
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To: longshadow
How can one be sure he's found the faintest dwarf?
103 posted on 04/24/2002 9:22:13 PM PDT by apochromat
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To: longshadow
How faint would a dwarf have to be for the universe to be 20 billion years old? Really really faint, I guess. :)
104 posted on 04/24/2002 9:23:35 PM PDT by apochromat
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