Is our model of the universe wrong?

Science Weekly

The Guardian

Science

4.2 • 938 Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2024

⏱️ 20 minutes

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Summary

For the past 10 years cosmologists have been left scratching their heads over why two methods for measuring the universe’s rate of expansion provide totally different results. There are two possible solutions to the puzzle, known as the Hubble tension: either something is wrong with the measurements or something is wrong with our model of the universe. It was hoped that observations from the James Webb space telescope might shed some light on the problem, but instead results published last week have continued to muddy the waters. To understand why the expansion rate of the universe remains a mystery, and what might be needed to finally pin it down, Madeleine Finlay speaks to Catherine Heymans, the astronomer royal for Scotland and a professor of astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod

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1:24.5	There's a crisis happening in cosmology. You always know how old you are. You know when your birthday was, but we don't know when the birthday of our universe was.
1:28.2	And that all rests on how fast the universe is expanding today.
1:32.3	That current speed of expansion is characterised by a value known as the Hubble constant.
1:39.7	And as Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Catherine Heyman's points out, the Hubble constant is the key to understanding the age of our universe.
1:50.4	The issue is, cosmologists can't agree on what that number actually is.
1:57.6	First, there's the one we get by looking at the late universe. That's stars and galaxies and
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