Unfortunately, their postulations although correct were not based in empirical data, and so could not be proven.
For the first time, Hubble was able to clearly see individual stars within M31 the Andromeda Galaxy.
For the first time, families of stars were known to exist beyond the Milky Way.
Hubble also discovered something else nearly every galaxy races away from each other at tremendous speeds.
(Incidentally, there is nothing special about our position in the Cosmos.
This same effect would be seen from any location in the expanding Universe).
The big question which still needs to be precisely answered today is how fast are they traveling?
Expansion started WAIT!
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Edwin Hubble set to measure the speed at which galaxies are racing apart from each other.
Lets start at the end a parsec is a unit of distance roughly equal to 3.26 light years.
Therefore, a megaparsec (a million parsecs) is a distance equal to around 3.26 million light years.
A galaxy at twice that distance would have a recessional velocity twice that speed, and so on.
Asking the right question
Astronomers utilize several methods to measure the Hubble constant.
However a conundrum has appeared.
Typically, observations ofgalaxiesin our galactic neighborhood show a Hubble constant of around 73 km/sec/Mpc.
Those values average out to 73.5 km/sec/Mpc.
For measuring distances to galaxies out to 100 megaparsecs, this is a fantastic method.
So, what of the lower values for H-naught obtained from observations of the early Universe?
This theory describes much about the evolution of the Universe using just a few parameters.
Albert Einstein
Finding the CDM model is incorrect would radically change our understanding of the Cosmos.
But, this question remains one of the great mysteries of modern science.
And, potentially, it could answer one of the greatest mysteries of the Cosmos.
Details of the study were reported inThe Astrophysical Journal.
