Mystery of the Universe's Expansion Rate Widens with New Hubble Data
Release date: Apr 25, 2019 10:00 AM (EDT)
There is something wrong with our universe. Or, more specifically, it is outpacing all expectations for its present rate of expansion.
Something is amiss in astronomers' efforts to measure the past and predict the present, according to a discrepancy between the two main techniques for measuring the universe's expansion rate – a key to understanding its history and physical parameters.
The inconsistency is between the Hubble Space Telescope measurements of today's expansion rate of the universe (by looking at stellar milepost markers) and the expansion rate as measured by the European Space Agency's Planck satellite. Planck observes the conditions of the early universe just 380,000 years after the big bang.
For years, astronomers have been assuming this discrepancy would go away due to some instrumental or observational fluke. Instead, as Hubble astronomers continue to "tighten the bolts" on the accuracy of their measurements, the discordant values remain stubbornly at odds.
The chances of the disagreement being just a fluke have skyrocketed from 1 in 3,000 to 1 in 100,000.
Theorists must find an explanation for the disparity that could rattle ideas about the very underpinnings of the universe.
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