Cepheid variable stars – Astronomy Now

A 150-million-year-old look at a spectacular spiral

17 January 2022 Astronomy Now

The Hubble Space Telescope is adept at spotting supernova blasts in remote galaxies, helping astronomers pin down the cosmic distance scale. Galaxy NGC 976 it a typically spectacular example of a Hubble target.

New analysis shows Milky Way a decidedly ‘warped” spiral

5 February 2019 Astronomy Now

Precisely mapping more than 1,300 Cepheid variable stars with known distances, astronomers have shown the disc of the Milky Way galaxy is warped.

A holiday “star wreath” from the Hubble Space Telescope

21 December 2018 William Harwood

In a holiday Hubble image, the Cepheid variable star RS Puppis, 10 times more massive than the sun and 200 times larger, shines in a wreath-like “gossamer cocoon” of dust, brightening and dimming over a 41.5-day cycle.

Cosmic mystery deepens with conflicting measurements of Hubble constant

13 July 2018 Astronomy Now

The Hubble constant indicates how fast the Universe is expanding in the wake of the Big Bang. New observations using two independent techniques have come up with different values, signs of possible problems with current theory.

Cosmic lenses support finding on faster than expected expansion of the Universe

30 January 2017 Stephen Clark

By using galaxies as giant gravitational lenses, an international group of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have made an independent measurement of how fast the Universe is expanding. The newly measured expansion rate for the local Universe is consistent with earlier findings. These are, however, in intriguing disagreement with measurements of the early Universe.

Hubble finds universe is expanding faster than expected

2 June 2016 Astronomy Now

When Edwin Hubble discovered nearly 100 years ago that the universe was uniformly expanding in all directions, the finding was a big surprise. Then, in the mid-1990s, another shocker occurred: astronomers found that the expansion rate was accelerating, perhaps due to “dark energy.” Now, the latest measurements of our runaway universe suggest that it is expanding faster than astronomers thought.

A new VISTA through the Milky Way

4 February 2015 Astronomy Now

While mapping the central regions of the Milky Way in infrared light searching for new and hidden objects, the 4.1-metre VISTA telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile looked through a familiar object to wonders beyond.