This image of galaxy NGC 5468, which combines data from the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes. Image: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Adam G Riess (JHU, STScI)
Combined readings from Hubble and Webb suggest there is something we don’t understand when it comes to how fast the universe is expanding.
While researchers are constantly discovering new things about our universe, there are various questions that remain unanswered – and phenomena that leave us puzzled.
One of these is called the ‘Hubble Tension’, which is a discrepancy when it comes to measuring how fast the universe is expanding. Based on our current understanding of the universe and how it began, it appears that the current rate of expansion is faster than what astronomers expect it to be.
Scientists using various telescopes – including the Hubble Space Telescope – have stumbled upon this issue for decades, leaving them wondering if this is simply a measurement error or if there is something influencing the expansion rate that we are not currently aware of.
Now, a study using combined readings from Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope, a team of researchers now believe that measurement errors are not the cause of this Hubble Tension – and that something else is influencing expansion. The team claims the two space observatories were able to produce definitive measurements.
“With measurement errors negated, what remains is the real and exciting possibility we have misunderstood the universe,” said Prof Adam Reiss of Johns Hopkins University. “We’ve now spanned the whole range of what Hubble observed, and we can rule out a measurement error as the cause of the Hubble Tension with very high confidence.”
Hubble and Webb’s confirmation of the Hubble Tension issue sets up other observatories to work on solving this mystery. NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will do wide celestial surveys to study the influence of dark energy, the mysterious energy that is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate.
“We need to find out if we are missing something on how to connect the beginning of the universe and the present day,” Reiss said.
Earlier this month, researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope spotted ethanol and other icy molecules in space and believe they are key ingredients to form potentially habitable planets.
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