James Webb confirms the rate of universe’s expansion

The latest data from the James Webb Space Telescope has confirmed the calculated rate of the Universe's expansion, which was initially derived from observations made with the Hubble Telescope. Previously, there were concerns that the earlier calculations might have been erroneous. The expansion rate of the Universe, known as the Hubble constant, exhibited a discrepancy between the observed values and those predicted based on the aftermath of the Big Bang, referred to as "Hubble tension." However, the James Webb Telescope has validated the accuracy of the Hubble Telescope's measurements.

Before the launch of Hubble in 1990, observations from Earth-based telescopes introduced significant errors, leading to estimations of the Universe's age ranging from 10 to 20 billion years. Over 34 years of observations with the Hubble Telescope, scientists have arrived at an estimate of 13.8 billion years with an accuracy of 1%, achieved through refining the astronomical distance scale via observations of Cepheid variable stars.

However, Hubble's data conflicted with other measurements suggesting that the Universe expanded more rapidly just after the Big Bang. It was speculated that errors or measurement inaccuracies might have crept into Hubble's data. Nevertheless, observations from the James Webb Telescope indicate that there were no errors. In an attempt to resolve the Hubble tension, some scientists hypothesized that measurement errors might increase and become noticeable as we delve deeper into the Universe. As a result, additional observations were conducted with the Webb Telescope on objects known as Cepheid variable stars, which can now be correlated with Hubble's data.

"Now that we have covered the entire range of Hubble measurements, we can confidently conclude that the Hubble tension is not caused by measurement error," commented a physicist from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Adam Riess, a Nobel laureate for discovering the accelerated expansion of the Universe due to the mysterious phenomenon called "dark energy." "Having confirmed the accuracy of measurements, it is probably and quite excitingly the case that we simply don't understand something in this Universe," added Riess. Ultimately, the Hubble tension remains a puzzle for scientists.