A group of astronomers from the University of California, Davis has collected new data that suggest the universe is expanding more rapidly than earlier estimated. The universe is unimaginably huge, and it keeps getting bigger. But astronomers cannot agree on how fast it is expanding. Some scientists call this a “crisis” in cosmology. Nine decades ago, the astronomer Edwin Hubble proved that the universe is orders of magnitude vaster than previously imagined. The speed of that extension is a number called the Hubble Constant. Estimations using various techniques have generated different outcomes, and the numbers show no sign of converging even as researchers modify their results. Astronomers believe our knowledge of fundamental physics is quite inadequate and to fix this might well need a breakthrough of the kind that wins Nobel Prizes.
