The Universe Is 50-100 Million Years Older, Experts Can't Decide Exactly How Old It Is

According to data obtained by the European Space Agency's Planck spacecraft, the universe is older than previously estimated. But just how much older remains a question.

Reports of the universe's new age have varied since a breakthrough map detailing mass in the universe was released by the ESA on Thursday, with some estimates putting the universe at a mere 50 million years older than previously believed, and others saying another 100 million years have passed since the Big Bang created the universe as we know it.

The Associated Press reported the universe is 80 million years older than previously thought, while National Public Radio reported the number at 50 million years.

A report from University of California Davis states the Planck observations put the universe at 100 million years older than previous estimates.

When talking about something that's 13.8 billion years old, whether it's 50 million or 100 million years older is like debating whether grandpa is 80- or 80-and-a-half-years-old.

But that experts cannot agree on an age speaks to how much more we have to learn about our universe.

"On one hand, we have a simple model that fits our observations extremely well, but on the other hand, we see some strange features which force us to rethink some of our basic assumptions," said Jan Tauber, the European Space Agency's Planck project scientist based in the Netherlands.

The Planck map is the first all-sky map of the large-mass distribution of the universe and have been hailed as an achievement scientifically on-par with the discovery of the Higgs boson, the so-called "God particle."

"Planck's high-precision map of the oldest light in our universe allows us to extract the most refined values yet of the universe's ingredients," said Lloyd Knox, a physics professor at UC Davis and the leader of the U.S. team interpreting the Planck data.

"Our microwave background maps are now sufficiently sensitive," said Knox, adding that the images can be used to infer a map of the universe's dark matter.