Quasar ‘clocks’ show Universe was five times slower soon after the Big Bang
www.eurekalert.org
Quasars are the supermassive black holes at the centres of early galaxies. Scientists have unlocked their secrets to use them as ‘clocks’ to measure time near the beginning of the universe.

In the early universe time ran much slower compared to the current period. This was already known, but scientists have pushed this back to a billion years after the big bang, when time ran 5x slower compared to now.

  • terath@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    From the article:

    “If you were there, in this infant universe, one second would seem like one second – but from our position, more than 12 billion years into the future, that early time appears to drag.”

    They are comparing to time now. If you assume a quasar expels stuff at the same rate through all time, then when you look far back in time you should see pulses coming from the distant stars at the same rate as now. Yes, that light took billions of years to get here but the pulsing rate should be the same.

    They found that it isn’t, it’s five times slower, which implies that time then must be five times slower than now.