Speaker
Description
In 1929, Carnegie astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding, and revolutionized our perspective on the universe. Decades of discovery followed. The launch of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in 1990 enabled astronomers to make measurements of the universe of unprecedented accuracy. Professor Freedman will describe how astronomers measure how fast the universe is expanding, a quantity known as the Hubble constant, which gives a measure of the size and the age of the universe. Recently, a new debate has emerged about the Hubble constant, potentially calling into question the standard model of cosmology, and raising the question of whether there is more exotic physics yet to be uncovered. Professor Freedman will present some new data from the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope that promises to resolve many of the issues currently confronting cosmology.
