Why is oceanic crust youngest near an oceanic ridge crest?

Oceanic crust is youngest near an oceanic ridge crest because these locations serve as spreading centres where new crust is actively being formed.123

As lithospheric plates diverge, molten magma from the underlying mantle wells up into the gap between them. This material solidifies to create new oceanic crust, effectively adding to the ocean floor at the ridge axis.134

Through the process of seafloor spreading, this newly formed crust is continuously pushed away from the ridge as more magma rises to fill the space behind it. Consequently, the crustal material found at the ridge crest is the most recently created, while the crust becomes progressively older and cooler as it moves further away from the spreading centre toward subduction zones, where it is eventually recycled into the mantle.1325