US, WASHINGTON (ORDO NEWS) — In the 1990s, astronomers discovered that the universe was expanding, with acceleration. They discovered this by observing the redshift of type Ia supernovae. They explode with almost the same energy, therefore, comparing the luminosity of different supernovae with each other, just find out how far they are from the Earth.
After creating the “distance map”, astronomers compared the redshift of the radiation of all these supernovae. It turned out that the wavelength of light from the farthest of them is longer than what should be expected in a static universe. This can only be explained if the Universe is expanding at a certain speed.
Ten years later, supernova data were checked in a different way – by analyzing the parameters of CMB from the early Universe. Unexpectedly, both methods registered the expansion of space-time, but for some reason its speed was different, which is physically impossible.
In search of measurement errors, the sensitivity of both methods has been repeatedly improved. But, despite all the clarifications, the discrepancies remained too large. According to the first method, the space with a diameter of 3.26 million light years expands by 74.0 kilometers per second, and according to the second – only 67.4 kilometers per second.
Lucas Lombriser (Lucas Lombriser) from the University of Geneva (Switzerland) proposed an unexpected and rather elegant solution to the problem. He drew attention to the fact that for calculating the rate of expansion of the Universe by relict radiation, the assumption is used that matter (clusters of galaxies) in space is evenly distributed.
Meanwhile, today it is more a hypothesis than a proven scientific fact. Indeed, most scientists believe that on a large scale, such a distribution should be uniform. But there are no observational facts behind this conviction.
The researcher in his article in Physics Letters B calculated such a variant of the structure of the Universe when the Galaxy in which we live is inside a bubble with a diameter of a quarter billion light-years.
Moreover, the density of matter inside it is twice lower than outside. According to his calculations, the gravitational effect of matter inside this “desert” on radiation passing through it will be noticeably weaker than in the case of the Universe without “bubbles”.
As a result, the relict radiation from the early Universe will reach the Earth noticeably distorted in its parameters. A terrestrial observer will have the feeling that the Universe is expanding more slowly than it actually does. That is, the rate of its expansion in supernovae is closer to the truth, and in relict radiation it is underestimated.
The new hypothesis is very significant for modern cosmology. Unlike other explanations of the “strange” speed of expansion of space, it does not require the invention of a certain “new physics”, but operates with already known laws. But solving one problem, it can give rise to another, only not among physicists, but among astronomers.
The diameter of the universe is estimated to be about 90 billion light-years. The presence of “deserts” in it, such as the one in which we live, means that huge heterogeneities are possible in the Universe.
This situation could not have developed on its own: something had to predetermine the “desert” of our space-time sector. What factor influenced this, what are the exact boundaries of the “desert” in which we live – all these are questions that have yet to be answered.
—
Online:
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.
Contact us: [email protected]
The article is written and prepared by our foreign editors from different countries around the world – material edited and published by Ordo News staff in our US newsroom press.