Don't feel bad if your to-do list keeps growing. The universe is expanding, too

 Don't feel bad if your to-do list keeps growing. The universe is expanding, too 

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This image, made up of data from @NASAHubble and @NASAWebb telescopes, shows the spiral galaxy NGC 5584. It’s about 72 million light-years away from Earth. Among the glowing stars in the spiral galaxy are a special class of exploding stars called Cepheid variables and Type Ia supernova. Astronomers use these stars as markers to measure the universe’s expansion rate. The expansion rate is measured by the brightness of certain stars which tells us how far away they are. This helps us understand how much time this light traveled to reach us, while the red wavelengths of the galaxies tell us how much the universe expanded in that time.⁣

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Recent observations made by Webb have improved the precision of local measurements of the Hubble constant. The Hubble constant is known as the rate at which the universe is expanding. This is fundamental in understanding the evolution and ultimately the fate of the cosmos. Hubble can single out a crowded star, but Webb has sharper infrared vision that sees through the gas and dust. While Webb has cut the noise and shows improved resolution, the two telescopes are in excellent agreement about the accuracy of the measurements.⁣

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Image description: A spiral galaxy with a bright star at the center. Blue dust surrounds the spiral arms along with purple and red stars. Darkness takes up the background of the image.⁣                

 

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                     21 September 2023