For the calibration of relatively short distances the team observed Cepheid variables. These are pulsating stars which fade and brighten at rates that are proportional to their true brightness and ...

The most precise measurement yet of how fast the Universe is expanding shows we have a real and serious problem on our hands.

The cosmic distance ladder is the world’s longest ruler, built to measure the universe. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, scientists have been constructing a cosmic measuring tape to measure the ...

See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. New findings into a cosmic puzzle suggest that scientists may have ...

A difference of a few kilometers per second might not sound like much. In cosmology, it has become one of the field’s most stubborn problems. An international team of astronomers has now delivered one ...

Physicists have improved the accuracy of a technique that uses variable stars to measure distances in the universe, providing a new figure for its expansion rate. When you purchase through links on ...

Trying to measure the size of the universe is no easy task. We know that the universe is expanding, though the exact rate of this expansion is not yet fixed. So one method that astronomers use to tell ...

Artist’s interpretation of the cosmic distance ladder — a succession of overlapping methods used to measure distances across the Universe, where each rung of the ladder provides information that can ...