[Fozzie (OP)]

Chris Martin  asked the Naked Scientists:
   
If the expansion of the universe is accelerating, then working back in time to the big bang, things would have been expanding more slowly, so it would have taken longer to get where we are now, so the universe must be older than the current estimations?

Love the show!

Thanks
Chris Martin

What do you think?

[Silver]

It was assumed that the oldest black holes would be around 1.4 billion years after the big bang but we have since found a two billion solar mass black hole (quasar) just 770 million years after the BB. The oldest galaxies so far are some 480 million years after the BB and better telescopes may find older ones. One of the oldest stars we know of from around the same time, HE 1523-0901 is in our own galaxy just 7,500 light years away.

We have to make assumptions of uniformity on dating the age of the universe. It's not impossible that the universe could be older.