The rate of expansion of the Universe is a big question. Why physics can't cope?

The next time you eat a muffin with berries, think about what happened with blueberries in the dough as baking sweets. Blueberries were in the same place, but with the expansion of scones berries began to move away from each other. If you could stand on one berry, you would see how all the others are removed from you, but the same would be true for any other berries that you choose. In that sense galaxy is similar to the berries in the muffin.

Since the Big Bang, the universe constantly expands. Strange fact is that it is not the only place from which the universe is expanding — rather all galaxies (on average) removed from others. From our point of view in the milky Way galaxy would seem that most of the galaxies moving away from us — as if we are the center of our universe blockoptions. But look from any other galaxy, and the view will be exactly the same.

To further confuse you, a new study shows that the expansion rate of the Universe can be different depending on how far back in time you look. New data, published in the Astrophysical Journal, indicate that the time has come to revise our understanding of the cosmos.

Mystery of the Hubble

Cosmologists describe the Universe expansion and a simple law — the law of Hubble (named after Edwin Hubble). The Hubble law is the observation that more distant galaxies are moving faster. This means that the close galaxies are moving relatively slowly.

The Relationship between speed and distance to the galaxy determined by the "Hubble constant" — 70 km/s/MPC. This means that the galaxy goes to approximately 90,000 km per hour for every million light years of distance from us.

This expansion of the Universe, when the nearest galaxies are moving slower distant galaxies, it is expected from a uniformly expanding space and dark energy (invisible force that accelerates the expansion of the Universe) and dark matter (invisible and unknown form of matter, which is five times more than usual). It can be seen and the cheesecake with berries.

The history of the measurement of the Hubble constant is full of difficulties and unexpected revelations. In 1929, the Hubble believed that its value must be approximately 600,000 miles per hour per million light years — about ten times larger than measured now. Attempts to accurately measure the Hubble constant for many years has led to the unintentional discovery of dark energy. Finding information about this mysterious type of energy, which accounts for 70% of the energy in the Universe, has inspired the launch of the best space telescope in the world (at the moment), named in honor of Hubble.

The Catch is that the results of the two most precise measurements are not consistent and are not related. As soon as cosmological measurements became so precise that showed the value of the Hubble constant, it has become clear that it does not make sense. Instead of one we have two contradictory results.

On the one hand, we have a new accurate measurement of the cosmic microwave background – the afterglow of the Big Bang – done by the mission "Planck", which measured the Hubble constant as 67.4 km/c/MPC.

On the other hand, we have a new measurement of pulsating stars in nearby galaxies also incredibly accurate, which measured permanent Habla how 73,4 km/s/MPC. They are closer to us in time.

Both measurements claim your result as correct and very accurate. The variance of measurements is of the order of 500 km per hour per million light years, so cosmologists call it the "tension" between the two measurements – they seem to stretch the statistics in different directions, and she needs somewhere to collapse.

New physics?

As she collapses? At the moment nobody knows. Perhaps our cosmological model incorrect. It is seen that the universe is expanding faster closer to us than we could expect, starting from the more distant measurements. Measurements of the cosmic microwave background does not measure the local extension, and do this through the model our cosmological model. She was extremely successful in predicting and describing many of the observed data in the Universe.

Therefore, although this model may be incorrect, nobody came up with a simple, convincing model able to explain at once, and all that we see. For example, we could try to explain this new theory of gravity, but then other observations do not fit. Or it would be possible to explain this new theory of dark matter or dark energy, but then other observations will not fit and so forth. Therefore, if this voltage is due to new physics, it should be complex and unknown.

Less interesting, explanation will be "unknown unknowns" in the data caused by systematic effects, and a more thorough analysis will one day reveal a subtle effect that was missed. Or it could be just a statistical Fluke that will disappear when more data are collected.

It is currently unclear what combination of new physics, systematic effects or new data will resolve this tension, but something is definitely clear. Picture the universe as expanding cupcake could be wrong, and before cosmologists have a difficult task to choose a different picture. If to explain the new dimensions will require new physics, then the result will change our perception of space.