|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Wielding state-of-the-art technologies and techniques, a team of Clemson University astrophysicists has added a novel approach to quantifying one of the most fundamental laws of the universe.
In a paper published Friday, Nov. 8, in The Astrophysical Journal, Clemson scientists Marco Ajello, Abhishek Desai, Lea Marcotulli and Dieter Hartmann have collaborated with six other scientists around the world to devise a new measurement of the Hubble Constant, the unit of measure used to describe the rate of expansion of the universe.
“Cosmology is about understanding the evolution of our universe—how it evolved in the past, what it is doing now and what will happen in the future,” said Ajello, an associate professor in the College of Science’s department of physics and astronomy. “Our knowledge rests on a number of parameters—including the Hubble Constant—that we strive to measure as precisely as possible. In this paper, our team analyzed data obtained from both orbiting and ground-based telescopes to come up with one of the newest measurements yet of how quickly the universe is expanding.”
The concept of an expanding universe was advanced by the American astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), who is the namesake for the Hubble Space Telescope. In the early 20th century, Hubble became one of the first astronomers to deduce that the universe was composed of multiple galaxies. His subsequent research led to his most renowned discovery: that galaxies were moving away from each other at a speed in proportion to their distance.
[…]
See Also:
(1) New Research Suggests the Universe May Be a Giant Loop
(2) Mobile app to provide the latest on black hole collisions and merging neutron stars
(3) Forget the habitable exoplanets—here are some of our galaxy’s freaks
(4) We Finally Know What Happened When Voyager 2 Reached Interstellar Space
(5) 100 Years Ago, Albert Einstein Became a Legend
(6) Astronomers map new emission line to trace most common molecule in the universe
(8) Image: Hubble touts a team of stars
(9) Astronomers investigate a curious case of a supernova connected with gamma-ray burst
(10) The first stars may have formed even earlier than first thought
