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Hmmm.
Scientists are baffled: What’s up with the universe?
The astronomers and physicists trying to nail down how fast the universe is growing are now wondering whether they need to revise cosmic history.
The universe doesn’t look right. It suddenly looks . . . out of whack.
That is the strange message coming from astronomers and physicists, who are wondering whether they need to revise cosmic history.
The universe is unimaginably big, and it keeps getting bigger. But astronomers cannot agree on how quickly it is growing — and the more they study the problem, the more they disagree. Some scientists call this a “crisis” in cosmology. A less dramatic term in circulation is “the Hubble Constant tension.”
Nine decades ago, the astronomer Edwin Hubble showed that the universe is orders of magnitude vaster than previously imagined — and the whole kit and kaboodle is expanding. The rate of that expansion is a number called the Hubble Constant.
It’s a slippery number, however. Measurements using different techniques have produced different results, and the numbers show no sign of converging even as researchers refine their observations. . . .
