Sky Matters: The universe still challenges our understanding of it as we get to know it

We should not despair that we live in a universe which is beyond our understanding. We can in fact be confident that we do understand much about how the universe works

A stellar spire in the Eagle Nebula. One new theory which is gaining some traction suggests the Universe is actually 27 billion years old. That’s twice as old as we thought until recently. Picture: NASA/PA Wire

One of the greatest joys of working in the field of astronomy is how frequently it challenges our understanding of the Universe. On reflection, this is perhaps not surprising. 

It was, after all, only 105 years ago that we started to get any reasonable idea of how big or old the universe might actually be thanks to the work led by astronomer Edwin Hubble.