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The Broken Cosmic Distance Ladder

Posted on Mar 7, 2022 in Gresham College, Outreach, Public lecture, universe

When Albert Einstein tweaked his newl

Measuring distances to astronomical objects outside our Galaxy is a surprisingly hard challenge: it wasn’t until 1923 that Edwin Hubble obtained proof that Andromeda is indeed a galaxy in its own right. Today, astronomers extend distance measurements in the cosmos to the edge of the visible Universe, building up a ‘cosmic distance ladder’ made of several rungs. 

This talk will explore a major conundrum of contemporary astronomy: as observations have become more precise, the distance ladder appears today to be broken.

A transcript of the lecture is available here.

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