Hubble Telescope Makes New Discovery

[skysidhe]

I never knew there was a theory besides the big bang of which I always found boring. I am glad Einstein was right about a theory I never learned about.
It is facinating for the first time so excuse my indulgence to the brains who already knew something about it.

Anyway, I saw this article and thought it very interesting. Plus the hubble pictures are beautiful.



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This so-called "dark energy" has been pushing the universe outward for at least 9 billion years, astronomers said Thursday.

"This is the first time we have significant, discrete data from back then," said Adam Riess, a professor of astronomy at Johns Hopkins University and researcher at NASA's Space Telescope Science Institute.

He and several colleagues used the Hubble to observe 23 supernovae - exploding white dwarf stars - so distant that their light took more than half the history of the universe to reach the orbiting telescope. That means the supernovae existed when the universe was less than half its current age of approximately 13.7 billion years.

Because the physics of supernova explosions is extremely well-known, it is possible for the astronomers to gauge not just their distance, but how fast the universe was expanding at the time they went off.


History of the Hubble




"This finding continues to validate the use of these supernovae as cosmic probes," Riess said.





http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a...00010000000001
NASA photograph shows a supernova explosion in 2005. Scientists recently found in distant supernovae that "dark energy" helped push the universe outward








I clear picture of the galaxy.