Free Republic

Our universe's rate of expansion keeps getting stranger. New data continues to show a discrepancy in how fast the universe expands in nearby realms and more distant locations.  The study's researchers said this "tension" could mean we need to revise our understanding of the physics structuring the universe, which could include exotic elements such as dark matter and dark energy. New measurements from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Gaia space telescope together showed that the rate of expansion nearby is 45.6 miles per second per megaparsec. This means that for every 3.3 million light-years a galaxy is farther away from...

Aa Astronomers are celebrating a massive data release that offers them the richest ever map of the Milky Way. The information comes from ESA's GAIA space telescope, which has surveyed almost two billion stars in our galaxy. They now have very precise data on billions of stars around our galaxy that will make for decades of analysis. It gives them the possibility to research the history of our galaxy and postulate what might happen in the future, too.Astronomer François Mignard was one of the founding fathers of the GAIA mission. So why does this data release make such a difference...