by Brad Harrub, Ph.D.Researchers have been measuring distances using Cepheid star variables since 1929. In the September 1999 issue of Nature, eight researchers authored a paper in which they showed the Cepheid method might need some tweaking (Maoz, et al., 1999). Using the Cepheid method to estimate the distance from the Earth, Maoz and his colleagues measured a galaxy known as NGC4258 to be 8.1 mega parsecs. [One mega parsec is equivalent to approximately three million light years.] Using what scientists refer to as “the more accurate” maser method, Maoz and his team found this distance to be only 7.2 mega parsecs. While this difference may not appear significant at first glance, if the maser-based distance is correct, then the Cepheid “distance scale” is in dire need of revision. But such a revision then would cause the value of the Hubble constant to be changed accordingly (an increase of 10-15%), and thus the expansion age of the Universe would decrease by the same amount. Simply put, this means that the Universe is much younger than previously thought by most physicists.
In referring to his recent findings Maoz said: “We discovered a considerable discrepancy between the maser-based and Cepheid-based distance. The bottom line is that it seems that galaxy distances may have been consistently overestimated by about 12%. This would imply that the Universe is expanding faster than expected, and the age of the Universe is lower by a similar factor” [
NASA AMES Press Release; for full story click here]. Is our Universe millions or billions of years old? No! And little by little, methodological errors and scientific uncertainty are bearing this out.REFERENCES
Maoz, Eyal, Jeffery A. Newman, Laura Ferrarese, Peter B. Stetson, et al. (1999), “A Distance to the Galaxy NGC4258 from Observations of Cepheid Variable Stars,” Nature, 401:351-354, September 23.
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