A team of astronomers including Carnegie’s Ian Thompson have
managed to improve the measurement of the distance to our nearest neighbor
galaxy and, in the process, refine an astronomical calculation that helps
measure the expansion of the universe. Their work is published March 7 by
Nature.
The Hubble constant is a fundamental quantity that measures
the current rate at which our universe is expanding. It is named after 20th
Century Carnegie astronomer Edwin P. Hubble, who astonished the world by
discovering that our universe has been growing continuously since its
inception. Determining the Hubble constant (a direct measurement of the rate of
this continuing expansion) is critical for gauging the age and size of our
universe. One of the largest uncertainties plaguing past measurements of the
Hubble constant has involved the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC),
our nearest neighboring galaxy, which orbits our own Milky Way.