Nasa and the European Space Agency jointly announced the universe is expanding 5% to 9% faster than predicted, a finding they reached after using the Hubble space telescope to measure the distance to stars in 19 galaxies beyond theMilky Way. "If you really believe our number – and we have shed blood, sweat and tears to get our measurement right and to accurately understand the uncertainties – then it leads to the conclusion that there is a problem with predictions based on measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation, the leftover glow from the Big Bang," co-author Alex Filippenko, an astronomy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a press release. "You start at two ends, and you expect to meet in the middle if all of your drawings are right and your measurements are right," study leader and Nobel Laureate Adam Riess, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute, said in a NASA press release. “But now the ends are not quite meeting in the middle and we want to know why.” 
 
 The researchers arrived at a new expansion rate of 73.2 kilometres per second per megaparsec. The consequence of this adjustment in difficult-to-imagine speeds over unthinkable distances is that the distance between cosmic objects will double in another 9.8 billion years. Measurements of the afterglow from the Big Bang by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and the European Space Agency's Planck satellite mission yield predictions which are 5 percent and 9 percent smaller for the Hubble constant, respectively. One possibility for the discrepancy is that the universe has unknown subatomic particles, similar to neutrinos, that travel nearly as fast as the speed of light, about 186,000 miles (300,000km) per second. Astronomers then look for galaxies that contain Cepheids (centre) and Type Ia supernovae, and determine their distance. Cepheid stars allow astronomers to determine how far they are from us, and thereby how distant their galaxy is, by analyzing two characteristics: their true brightness, gleaned from the rate at which they pulsate, versus their apparent brightness as seen from Earth. "This surprising finding may be an important clue to understanding those mysterious parts of the universe that make up 95 percent of everything and don't emit light, such as dark energy, dark matter, and dark radiation," said study leader and Nobel Laureate Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute and The Johns Hopkins University, both in Baltimore, Maryland. Current telescopes such as the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite, and future telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an infrared observatory, and the Wide Field Infrared Space Telescope (WFIRST), also could help astronomers make better measurements of the expansion rate. The universe was expanding at a steady rate, but it might still be possible that expansion could halt, or even that the universe could contract. They used the Hubble Space Telescope to measure a particular type of star, known as Cepheid variables – the stars that gave Edwin Hubble and and his colleagues the first hint of an expanding universe - in 19 galaxies beyond our own Milky Way galaxy. According to new research, soon to be published in the Astrophysical Journal, the rate of expansion, or the Hubble constant, is about 73.24 kilometers per second per megaparsec (a unit equivalent to 3.26 million light-years): somewhere between five and nine percent faster than we thought.
– New calculations in the cosmos have revealed a surprise: The universe appears to be expanding faster than anyone thought. Using the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists measured the distance to stars in 19 galaxies and concluded that the universe is growing 5% to 9% quicker than expected, the researchers say in a press release. For the record, they calculate the rate to be 45.5 miles per second per megaparsec, the latter being the equivalent of 3.26 million light-years. It's surprising, UPI reports, because astronomers expected the calculations to jibe with previous ones conducted by NASA and the European Space Agency. If the new rate is confirmed, it could challenge some basic precepts about how the universe functions and challenge at least part of Einstein's theory of relativity, reports the Guardian. "If you really believe our number—and we have shed blood, sweat and tears to get our measurement right and to accurately understand the uncertainties—then it leads to the conclusion that there is a problem with predictions based on measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation, the leftover glow from the Big Bang," says co-author Alex Filippenko of Berkeley, per the Christian Science Monitor. While 5% to 9% may not seem like a big deal, it constitutes a "major discrepancy" in this particular case, notes Gizmodo. Part of the answer around the discrepancy may lie in the "mysterious parts of the universe that make up 95% of everything and don't emit light, such as dark energy, dark matter, and dark radiation," says another of the project's researchers. Their findings will be published in Astrophysical Journal.