Research shows that the universe has existed for 13.8 billion years. There are different methods that they use. The first one is they measure the oldest items that they can find in the universe. For example, they can measure how old the star is and all of the other stars similar to it. The second method that they do is they try to find a way in order to know how fast the universe is expanding.
It is already common knowledge among astronomers that the universe continues to expand at a rapid rate. Even though it is very fast, the universe is vast. People dread what would occur when the universe stops expanding. This might freeze everything including life.