In around 5 billion years, the sun will run out of the fuel needed for nuclear fusion in its core. This will cause its inner core to collapse under the force of the sun's own gravity. At this point, ...

An image of the Cepheid variable star RS Puppis. The most accurate observation to date of distant stars that periodically change in brightness may spark a rethink of the rate at which the universe ...

The universe is expanding; we’ve had evidence of that for about a century. But just how quickly celestial objects are receding from each other is still up for debate. It’s no small feat to measure the ...

The cosmic distance ladder is the world’s longest ruler, built to measure the universe. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, scientists have been constructing a cosmic measuring tape to measure the ...

Pasadena, CA — Ohio State University researchers have found a way to measure distances to objects three times farther away in outer space than previously possible, by extending a common measurement ...

Trying to measure the size of the universe is no easy task. We know that the universe is expanding, though the exact rate of this expansion is not yet fixed. So one method that astronomers use to tell ...

It’s a bit mind-bending to realise that everything we know about the scale of the universe comes from people stuck […] ...

An artist's conception of what's called the cosmic distance ladder -- a series of celestial objects, including type Ia supernovae that have known distances and can be used to calculate the rate at ...

The cosmic distance ladder could soon have another rung. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. In around 5 billion years, the sun will ...

Physicists have improved the accuracy of a technique that uses variable stars to measure distances in the universe, providing a new figure for its expansion rate. When you purchase through links on ...