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New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope suggest that a new feature in the universe—not a flaw in telescope measurements—may be behind the decadelong mystery of why the universe is expanding faster today than it did in its infancy billions of years ago.
The new data confirms Hubble Space Telescope measurements of distances between nearby stars and galaxies, offering a crucial cross-check to address the mismatch in measurements of the universe’s mysterious expansion. Known as the Hubble tension, the discrepancy remains unexplained even by the best cosmology models.
“The discrepancy between the observed expansion rate of the universe and the predictions of the standard model suggests that our understanding of the universe may be incomplete,” said Nobel laureate and lead author Adam Riess, a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor and professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. “With two NASA flagship telescopes now confirming each other’s findings, we must take this [Hubble tension] problem very seriously—it’s a challenge but also an incredible opportunity to learn more about our universe.”
By way of John Hopkins University