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The true age of the universe has finally been pinned down. It was born 13.7 billion years ago: the moment of the explosion called the Big Bang. All the universe's matter and energy was originally concentrated inside a tiny nucleus with an extremely high temperature. Unknown forces caused the explosion, which was subsequently followed by a rapid expansion and then a cooling of the universe that persists to the present day.

Determining the universe's age was made possible by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which captured the image of the radiation at the bottom of the universe. Data which has additionally confirmed both the Big Bang and inflation theories of the universe: the idea that due to the effects of gravity, the universe will always continue to expand and cool rather than contracting once again.

Scientists have been working on the project under the direction of Charles Bennet from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Their findings can be viewed at NASA's website.

The images captured by WMAP provided other data surprises. For example, it's been determined that the first stars were burned some 200 million years before the Big Bang, much sooner than previously supposed. It has also been determined that the universe did not become transparent until 370,000 years after the first huge explosion. Up to that time, it more closely resembled a nebulous cloud.