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Measuring the Hubble Constant Better

Posted by kdawson on from the masing-galaxies dept.

eldavojohn writes "The Hubble Constant is used for many things in astrophysics: from determining how fast things are moving away from us, to the total volume of the universe, to predicting how our universe will end. The current best value for the Hubble Constant is 74.2 ± 3.6 (km/s)/Mpc according to recent conventional methods and the recently restored Hubble Telescope. Most astronomers agree that that's within 10% of its actual value. Researchers now claim that they might be able to get to 3% using water molecules in galactic disks to act as masers that amplify radio waves, to analyze galaxies seven times as far away as the current measurements. The further away the 'standard candle' is, the more assured they can be that local effects are not skewing the measurements. From one of the researchers: 'We measured a direct, geometric distance to the galaxy, independent of the complications and assumptions inherent in other techniques. The measurement highlights a valuable method that can be used to determine the local expansion rate of the universe, which is essential in our quest to find the nature of dark energy.' Once the Square Kilometer Array is completed, they hope to get even closer to the actual value."

4 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Linux is why the Hubble Telescope failed by linustorvaldsisaturd · · Score: -1, Troll

    Linux just isn't ready for the space telescope yet. It may be ready for the web servers that you nerds use to distribute your TRON fanzines and personal Dungeons and Dragons web-sights across the world wide web, but the average space telescope user isn't going to spend months learning how to use a CLI and then hours compiling packages so that they can get a workable graphic interface to check the stars with, especially not when they already have a Windows space telescope that does its job perfectly well and is backed by a major corporation, as opposed to Linux which is only supported by a few unemployed nerds living in their mother's basement somewhere. The last thing I want is a level 5 dwarf (haha) providing me my OS.

  2. Um, no. Hubble's assistant says its not a constant by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 0, Troll

    Halton C. Arp, a professional astronomer was Edwin Hubble's assistant, says otherwise ...

    http://www.electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm

  3. hubble ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    why do they call it hubble ? seriously was it funded by scientology ?

  4. To get it over with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    now all we need are tiarks with frickin' mazer beams on their heads.