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How to measure the age of light?

Physics Asked by user990909 on March 31, 2021

We measure distances in universe by the units of light year/s or parsec. Which means distance traveled by light in one year equals one light year. Thus the lights we receive from the distant stars or galaxies are coming from many light years away.

So how do we know the age of the light so that we determine the distance it has traveled to reach earth?

2 Answers

We actually measure the distance, and infer the age of the light from the distance. There are many answers on the site discussing how cosmological distances are measured.

Correct answer by Jerry Schirmer on March 31, 2021

You can misure the redshift $z$, from which $z=frac{1}{a_e}$ you obtain the Scale Factor $a_e$ that the Universe had when that light was emitted. But the scale factor is directly related to the age of the universe, so you know the age that the universe had when the light was emitted.

Answered by Andrea Di Pinto on March 31, 2021

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