Dec 26, 2023 10:38 PM
https://www.livescience.com/space/unexpe...e-universe
INTRO: A survey of more than 25 million galaxies has found a strange contradiction in how astronomers measure the universe's clumpiness, and it could threaten the standard model of cosmology, which describes how the universe formed and evolved.
The discrepancy, found by measuring the warping of light by the powerful gravitational fields of distant galaxies, suggests that the cosmos is less packed-together than previously predicted.
If the measurement is accurate, it will join the Hubble tension as yet another significant challenge to our preconceptions of how the cosmos evolved — one that could give way to new physics or even an entirely different model of the universe. The researchers published their findings Dec. 11 in the journal Physical Review D.
"We're still being fairly cautious here," Michael Strauss, chair of Princeton University's Department of Astrophysical Sciences and one of the leaders of the team that made the discovery, said in a statement.
"We're not saying that we've just discovered that modern cosmology is all wrong. The statistics show that there's only a one in 20 chance that it's just due to chance, which is compelling but not completely definitive. But as we in the astronomy community come to the same conclusion over multiple experiments, as we keep on doing these measurements, perhaps we're finding that it's real." (MORE - details)
INTRO: A survey of more than 25 million galaxies has found a strange contradiction in how astronomers measure the universe's clumpiness, and it could threaten the standard model of cosmology, which describes how the universe formed and evolved.
The discrepancy, found by measuring the warping of light by the powerful gravitational fields of distant galaxies, suggests that the cosmos is less packed-together than previously predicted.
If the measurement is accurate, it will join the Hubble tension as yet another significant challenge to our preconceptions of how the cosmos evolved — one that could give way to new physics or even an entirely different model of the universe. The researchers published their findings Dec. 11 in the journal Physical Review D.
"We're still being fairly cautious here," Michael Strauss, chair of Princeton University's Department of Astrophysical Sciences and one of the leaders of the team that made the discovery, said in a statement.
"We're not saying that we've just discovered that modern cosmology is all wrong. The statistics show that there's only a one in 20 chance that it's just due to chance, which is compelling but not completely definitive. But as we in the astronomy community come to the same conclusion over multiple experiments, as we keep on doing these measurements, perhaps we're finding that it's real." (MORE - details)