Astronomers are struggling to understand the discrepancies when measuring the expansion rate of the universe with different methods, and are desperate for any creative idea to break the tension. A new method involving some of the oldest stars in the universe could just do the trick.
Astronomers have different methods for measuring the present-day expansion rate of the universe, known as the Hubble constant. One common method is to measure the brightness of distant supernovae. Another method is to examine the leftover light from the early universe, known as the cosmic microwave background. However, these two measurements disagree.
“One of the most exciting questions in cosmology today is whether there is new physics that is missing from our current understanding of how the universe is evolving. A current discrepancy in the measurement of the Hubble constant could be signaling a new physical property of the universe or, more mundanely, unrecognized measurement uncertainties,” said Wendy L. Freedman, the John and Marion Sullivan University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
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