Universe's expansion rate refined using supernova 'twins' ⚡ экспресс
Cosmic dust was distorting the picture of the Universe's expansion. After cleaning up data from twin supernovae, scientists obtained a more precise value for the Hubble constant—72.4 km/s per megaparsec. This means galaxies are racing apart faster than we thought, and the mystery remains.
Type Ia supernovae are like light bulbs of a fixed wattage: the dimmer the light, the farther the source. Such supernovae serve as distance markers to remote galaxies. But cosmic dust, like a dirty window, dims and reddens the light, messing up the calculations. Astronomers led by Adam Riess sidestepped the problem: they compared only 'twins'—supernovae with identical properties, whose light traveled through similarly dusty regions. It's like gauging distance by lamps hidden in identical lampshades. The new data yield a universe expansion rate of about 72.4 km/s per megaparsec (that's 3.26 million light-years). That's noticeably faster than the ancient light from the Big Bang predicts. The discrepancy, known as the 'Hubble tension', has now grown even stronger.
🎯 It was precisely with type Ia supernovae that the accelerating expansion of the universe was discovered in 1998—a Nobel Prize-winning breakthrough.
🎬 Confirmation of the Hubble tension makes sci-fi scenarios where physical laws evolve just a little less fictional.