Cosmologists have found galaxies that are said to be too old to exist. Why isn’t this simply evidence that the universe is older than we think?

Question

Cosmologists have found galaxies that are said to be too old to exist. Why isn’t this simply evidence that the universe is older than we think?

In: 81

Answer 1

They’re only too old in the sense that under our current understanding of the universe, galaxies shouldn’t have been able to form to that level of maturity that long ago.

Basically the findings mean that galaxies formed earlier than we thought, quicker than we thought, or both.

We are pretty confident in our prediction of the age of the universe so it seems more likely that our understanding of galaxy formation is what needs to be updated.