Finding New Methods To Measure The Ever Expanding Universe

The Universe is expanding, sounds very strange, because it is something we cannot see. The Universe encompasses everything in existence, from the tiniest atom to the largest galaxies. It is estimated that since forming some 13.7 billion years ago in the Big Bang, it has been expanding and could be infinite in its scope. We only have knowledge about a very small portion of the Universe which is known or called as the observable universe. The part or the region surrounding the Earth from which light has had the time to reach us.

How does the Universe expand? The expansion of the universe is the increase of the distance between two distant parts of the universe with time. This observation was first made by American astronomer Edwin Hubble in 1925, and he was the first to prove that the universe is indeed expanding. He explained and proved the direct relationship between the speeds of distant galaxies and their distances from Earth. This is now known as the Hubble's Law. The Hubble space telescope was also named after him, also the single number that describes the rate at which the universe is expanding, relating the apparent recession, velocities of the external galaxies to their distance, is called the Hubble Constant.

About 7.5 billion years ago, a change was noticed when objects in the universe began flying and scattering apart at a faster rate. Some astronomers say that the faster expansion rate is due to the presence of a dark force that is pulling the galaxies apart. Professor Wendy Freedman of University of Chicago and her colleagues have a new measurement for the rate of expansion at present. The new measurement of the Hubble constant using a distant star known as the red giant. Their new observation made using Hubble, indicates that the expansion rate for the closest universe is just less than 70 kilometers per second per mega parsec. (Km/sec/Mpc).

All these research and observation indicates that the universe may expand to eternity. Until now researchers were of the opinion that the expansion was slowing down due to the effect of gravity. However, research continues and studies of remote galaxies and the dark force also called the dark energy may modify or change the fates of the universe. The dark energy is more unknown than is known. The existence of dark energy is known and its effects on the expansion of the universe. However, apart from this information the Dark energy still remains a mystery. The universe will keep stretching but for now we have the gravitational force to keep us in place.

By: Madhuchanda Saxena

Content: https://scitechdaily.com/astronomers-reveal-new-measurement-for-universe-expansion/