Measuring the Universe’s expansion
JUN 11, 2009
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.023419
SPACE.com : Astronomers have directly measured the distance to a faraway galaxy, providing them with a yardstick that could help determine just how fast the universe around us is expanding.
“Measuring precise distances is one of the oldest problems in astronomy, and applying a relatively new radio astronomy technique to this old problem is vital to solving one of the greatest challenges of 21st century astrophysics,” said team member Mark Reid of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).Using the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) in New Mexico, the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Effelsberg Radio Telescope in Germany, the astronomers determined that the galaxy UGC 3789 is 160 million light-years from Earth. Related Link The megamaser cosmology project. I. very long baseline interferometric observations of UGC 3789 M. J. Reid et al 2009 ApJ 695 287-291
© 2009 American Institute of Physics
