Imagine the Wrinkles Too

Thanks to a fascinating new finding by the Hubble Space Telescope, we now know that the universe we inhabit is not only large enough to make Earth a sandy speck on the beaches of one lonely galaxy but is older than even South Carolina’s Sen. Strom Thurmond. Our universe, it turns out, is about 14 billion years old, give or take 6 million months. If that doesn’t make you feel younger today, nothing will.

Astronomers, who’ve been debating the universe’s age for what once seemed like a long time, figured this out by photographing and measuring the fading light of distant star cinders, which the space telescope can do from above our murky atmosphere. At a constant rate, these cinders have cooled to only 2,500 degrees Celsius. So faint was this arriving starlight that each photo’s exposure needed eight days, which seems a long time to hold a pose until you realize that the light being captured departed the distant star 7,000 years ago.

That star could have become inhabited and gone through our recorded history twice since that gaseous glimmer flew out into space. For all we know, in those 70 centuries that star has cooled to 2,497 degrees and been bought by Vivendi Universal for an outer space theme park.

We do love to count things. But these astronomical numbers put a whole new perspective on the concept of time for hurried earthlings, who feel the need for e-mails, microwaves, FedExes, 22-minute sitcoms and politicians with two-term limits.

True, astronomers announced the universe’s precise age with a certainty that comes only from the confidence that no one else is counting. But 14 billion years can still be helpful to recall during, for instance, a daylong wait for the cable TV guy. Or during all those other musical acts at the spring concert before your kid performs.

Fourteen billion years is a galactically golden excuse for tardy bus drivers (“Hey, we’re only a few minutes late”) and forgetful husbands (“Honey, what’s one forgotten anniversary in a universe that’s 14 billion years old?”). Fourteen billion years would produce plenty of junk mail, but such a span certainly makes a morning commute on the 101 seem less unreasonable.

Just imagine how many times women’s skirt lengths went up and down in 14 billion years. Or the convoluted exercise equipment that could be invented for infomercials. Picture the number of photo ops for Gov. Gray Davis in 14 billion years of ostentatiously opening new power plants. Or the times people have said, “Bottom line ... “ or “I’ll call you” or “At the end of the day....” Fourteen billion years have 5,110,000,000,000 mornings, a daunting amount of shaves. If light took 7,000 years to arrive, how long do you figure for a property tax bill to get here from there--and the accrued penalties and interest? But then, just imagine the number of frequent-flier miles in 7,000 light-years.