Astronomers See Evidence of Something Unexpected in the Universe
It will be interesting to see what is discovered in the course of trying to understand why these results disagree.
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The team’s new study extends the number of stars analyzed to distances up to 10 times farther into space than previous Hubble results.
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But Riess’s value reinforces the disparity with the expected value derived from observations of the early universe’s expansion, 378,000 years after the big bang the violent event that created the universe roughly 13.8 billion years ago. Those measurements were made by the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite, which maps the cosmic microwave background, a relic of the big bang. The difference between the two values is about 9 percent. The new Hubble measurements help reduce the chance that the discrepancy in the values is a coincidence to 1 in 5,000
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Planck’s result predicted that the Hubble constant value should now be 67 kilometers per second per megaparsec (3.3 million light-years), and could be no higher than 69 kilometers per second per megaparsec. This means that for every 3.3 million light-years farther away a galaxy is from us, it is moving 67 kilometers per second faster. But Riess’s team measured a value of 73 kilometers per second per megaparsec, indicating galaxies are moving at a faster rate than implied by observations of the early universe.
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The Hubble data are so precise that astronomers cannot dismiss the gap between the two results as errors in any single measurement or method. Both results have been tested multiple ways, so barring a series of unrelated mistakes, Riess explained, it is increasingly likely that this is not a bug but a feature of the universe.
The disagreement in these results could possibly indicate an expected new (to us) property of the Universe.
I find this article interesting not just because it is reporting results that are exciting on their own, but because it is reporting the disparity in results and shows scientists trying understand what is happening rather than covering it up, an accusation aimed at science that has been seen being made by the anti-science conspiracy nutjobs.
Enjoy
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