Posted on 04/26/2019 10:49:03 AM PDT by Red Badger
Explaining a discrepancy between what was happening 13 billion years ago and now may require new physics.
It's become clear that something in the cosmos just doesn't add up. The universe is getting bigger every second. In fact, it's expanding at a much faster rate than it should.
For some time now there's been a mismatch in observations of the early universe done with the European Space Agency's Planck Telescope and what astronomers see when they measure the more nearby, modern parts of space with NASA's Hubble Telescope. (Keep in mind that looking at distant parts of the universe with powerful telescopes is the same as looking back in time).
When scientists look at what was going on 13 billion years ago, via Planck, and then extrapolate that into the present, the results don't match what Hubble sees today. For several years, there's been an assumption that the disagreement is due to a lack of precision in the measurements. But as scientists have fine-tuned their tools, the discrepancy has remained. On Thursday, researchers using Hubble said the chances the mismatch is some sort of user error or fluke have gone from 1 in 3,000 to 1 in 100,000.
"The Hubble tension between the early and late universe may be the most exciting development in cosmology in decades," lead researcher and Nobel laureate Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute, which leads Hubble's science mission, said in a statement. "This mismatch has been growing and has now reached a point that is really impossible to dismiss as a fluke. This disparity could not plausibly occur just by chance."
The Hubble team's results have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
Riess says the discrepancy strongly suggests there's a piece missing in the puzzle that scientists have put together over the years to model the history of the universe.
One possible explanation could be the appearance of dark energy at some point long ago. It's now theorized that up to 70 percent of the universe may be made up of the mysterious stuff. A yet undiscovered and speedy particle in the universe that affects its expansion is another possibility, as is the idea that unseen dark matter might be pushing on the normal matter we can see more strongly than we thought.
The actual explanation remains a mystery. Riess and other scientists plan to continue fine-tuning their tools and measurements, but if the mismatch isn't due to human error, new physics may be needed to complete the puzzle.
"Previously, theorists would say to me, 'it can't be. It's going to break everything.' Now they are saying, 'we actually could do this,'" Riess said.
The universe is expanding faster than we thought, because it’s going downhill!.................
I got a “universal service charge” on my cell phone bill. I think it has something to do with that.
Carbon credits will fix it!!!
Trump’s fault.
There is nothing new in this article. The generally accepted explanation for the acceleration of the expansion is that this is due to the nature of what is called “vacuum energy” or “dark energy”. This is an extremely tiny effect that is due to quantum fluctuations in energy that must happen in empty space even without other matter being present. It has two interesting properties. Unlike other energy types, it doesn’t dilute as more space is created by the effects of the original big bang expansion, and, rather than creating positive pressure like other energy types, it creates negative pressure like a rubber band pulling space apart as it grows. The more space that is created the more undiluted dark energy accumulates driving the acceleration even more. Scientists are able to measure the expansion in the past compared to now. The expansion due to ordinary matter from the big bang began to slow about 5 billion years ago and the dark energy acceleration began to dominate the expansion at that time.
Perhaps a silly question but "than it should"? Why? What other universe(s) have we observed to compare? Perhaps we actually just don't know what a comparable universe does at this stage of its existence?
The more we know, the more we know we don’t know.
Evolution as the origin of species was easy to believe a hundred years ago. The more we know, though, the more unlikely it becomes. As you discover new complexities, sometimes by several orders of magnitude, you can’t just throw more monkeys, typewriters and time at it. Rather, it may be time to start from Scratch.
I recommend John 1. Followed by Genesis 1.
> One possible explanation could be the appearance of dark energy at some point long ago
Knew it before I even read the whole article. The explanation for everything is dark matter or dark energy except on Earth. Then it’s global warming.
Douglas Adams covered that perfectly:
"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
That is Astrophysicist speak for “It doesn’t fit our equations.”...................
Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money!
Universal Warming.
“For some time now there’s been a mismatch in observations of the early universe done with the European Space Agency’s Planck Telescope and what astronomers see when they measure the more nearby, modern parts of space with NASA’s Hubble Telescope. (Keep in mind that looking at distant parts of the universe with powerful telescopes is the same as looking back in time).”
Yet somewhere in that discrepancy is one or the other - Hubble or Planck, seeming to show a faster exanding universe than the other. You’d think either the scientists reported which it was to the journalists and the journalists left it out, or the scientists never told the journalists which it was. But, to understand the issue requires knowing which set of eyes is demonstrating a faster expanding usniverse than the other.
That’s why they should always write their science stuff in pencil.
Beat me ...
Too much dark energy? or maybe not enough. Or too much dark matter, or not enough. Or too many of those Higgs Bosons. Or an alternate universe encroaching on ours.
How about this: the Big Bang Theory is just a TV sitcom.
So you’re suggesting George Castanza is correct about shrinkage?
I thought Einstein and Hawkings had already solved this.
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