Recent NASA Studies Reveal an Ever Expanding Universe

The universe is a massive thing. It's literally so big and so vast that we as humans can't really properly begin to comprehend what is all out there. Over the course of hundreds and even thousands of years, humanity has held a collective sense of wonder and amazement about space and the universe and discovering what is out there.

From the Geocentric Model of the solar system that people once believed, to Nicolaus Copernicus developing the Heliocentric Model and deducing that planets revolve around the Sun and not around the Earth, to the discovery of other galaxies, Supernova's and Black Holes, humanity and science has discovered a lot. In comparison to the universe though, we still know so little.

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In an effort to expand our knowledge and continue exploration of the universe, scientists' at NASA recently conducted research on one of if not the most confounding puzzles or theories in the field of cosmology. That Puzzle is called "Hubble Tension" or simply how quickly is the universe really expanding?

Tools for the Assignment

First and foremost, it should be understood that this concept, theory, idea or whatever you want to call it is not something that hasn't been done before. What scientists have done with this recent study is the equivalent of triple checking and even quadruple checking homework and making sure no errors are present.

The basic premise of Hubble Tension is that we already know the universe is expanding but that the current rate of expansion is faster than what astronomers had previously expected. This is why scientists and astronomers found it necessary to go back and check the previous work that had been done.

In order to conduct this research, science utilized the metaphorical big guns and used both the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope to definitively prove that all the measurements, calculations and numbers are in fact correct.

Universal Study Results

As one can imagine, the tactics used to even attempt studies like this are quite complex. Various methods are also used by Astronomers to try and measure the relative distance of what the subject of the study. These various methods according to the NASA article is called the "Cosmic Distance Ladder"

The way this ladder works though is that every step of research is based off of the work done at previous stages. If the work isn't correct at a previous stage then it won't be at all while moving forward. Think of cards, if one card is out of place, the rest of the house crashes down.

When the work was concluded, astronomers were able to make some incredible discoveries. First off, the Hubble Telescope has been monitoring the universe's expansion for the last 30 years and the Webb Telescope was able to confirm Hubble's accuracy. They also discovered that the answer is yes; the universe is expanding and at a faster rate than previously expected.

This confirmation opens up a fascinating door in the world of astronomy. Physicist Adam Riess of Johns Hopkins University would even state that...

With measurement errors negated, what remains is the real and exciting possibility we have misunderstood the universe

Riess was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize back in the year 1998, where he and colleagues Saul Perlmutter and Brian Schmidt discovered that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate and that expansion is through what is called "dark energy".

NASA Hubble/Webb Takeaways

The studies conducted by NASA with the Hubble and Webb telescopes go into much greater detail about everything analyzed and discovered but even to a common man like myself, the possibilities are incredible to just think about.

It's kind of like before, humans have made some incredible discoveries over the last few thousand years but in reality we collectively haven't even scratched the surface. The universe holds... well an infinite amount of secrets still left to discover. Who knows what may be next?