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Hubble telescope refines universe expansion rate mystery - Space.com

Hubble telescope refines universe expansion rate mystery - Space.com

Hubble telescope refines universe expansion rate mystery - Space.com
May 21, 2022 1 min, 48 secs

The Hubble telescope just made its best measurement yet of the universe's current expansion rate, but it still doesn't match the early universe!

Scientists have a new, more accurate, measurement of the expansion of the universe thanks to decades worth of data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The new analysis of data from the 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope continues the observatory's longstanding quest to better understand how quickly the universe expands, and how much that expansion is accelerating.

The number astronomers use to measure this expansion is called the Hubble Constant (not after the telescope but after astronomer Edwin Hubble who first measured it in 1929).

The new study confirms previous expansion rate estimates based on Hubble observations, showing an expansion of roughly 45 miles (73 kilometers) per megaparsec. (A megaparsec is a measurement of distance equal to one million parsecs, or 3.26 million light-years.).

Related: The best Hubble Space Telescope images of all time.

Riess and collaborators received the Nobel in 2011 after Hubble and other observatories confirmed that the universe was accelerating in its expansion.

Riess calls this latest Hubble effort a "magnum opus" given that it draws upon practically the telescope's entire history, 32 years of space work, to deliver an answer.

Hubble's data nailed down its observed expansion rate under a program called SHOES (Supernova, H0, for the Equation of State of Dark Energy.) The dataset doubles a previous sample of measurements and also includes more than 1,000 Hubble orbits, NASA stated.

Because they are seen exploding at a rate of about one per year, Hubble has, for all practical purposes, logged as many supernovae as possible for measuring the universe's expansion." (Again, Hubble has been in space for about 32 years, having launched on April 24, 1990; a mirror flaw that hindered early work was addressed by astronauts in December 1993.).

Riess said it is best to see the expansion rate not for its exact value at its time, but its implications.

— The Hubble Space Telescope and 30 years that transformed our view of the universe.

Webb, NASA said, will look at Cepheids and Type 1a supernovas "at greater distances or sharper resolution than what Hubble can see." That may in turn refine Hubble's observed rate.

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