The Earth, the planetary system, the whole star system and the other galaxies nearest to us are traveling in a huge “bubble” that is nearly 250 million light-years in diameter, where the total amount of matter is half the size of the universe.

This is a theory discussing one of the mysteries of the universe, put out by a University of Geneva (UNIGE) theoretical physicist, to answer a dilemma that has separated the scientific community for a decade: what is the speed that the universe expands to? So far, with a statistically irreconcilable variance, at least two independent measurement methods have reached two values which are unequal by around 10 percent.

This modern method, set out in the Physics Letters B article, removes this difference without any “new physics” being used.

After the Big Bang occurred 13.8 billion years ago, the universe has expanded – a statement first made by the Belgian canon and physicist Georges Lemaître (1894-1966), and later illustrated by Edwin Hubble (1889-1953). In 1929, the American astronomer revealed that every galaxy moves away from us and that the most distant galaxies move the fastest.  Therefore, all of this implies there was a time long ago when all of the galaxies were at the same location, a period that can only relate to the Big Bang.

This study has brought on the Hubble-Lemaître law, along with the Hubble constant (H0), which signifies the rate of expansion of the universe. Currently, the best predictions for H0 are around 70 (km / s)/Mpc (meaning the universe expands faster every 3.26 million light-years by 70 kilometers a second). However, the issue is that there are two opposing estimation methods.

Supernovas are definitely one of the mysteries of the universe.     

The first one is centered on the cosmic microwave background: this is the microwave emission that comes from all around us, released at the moment when the universe was cool enough to actually allow light to spread freely (about 370,000 years after the Big Bang).

Using the Planck space mission’s reliable information and the assumption that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic, a value of 67.4 is calculated for H0 using Einstein’s general relativity hypothesis to run through the situation.

The second type of estimation is based on the supernovae that occur occasionally in galaxies that are far away. For instance, such very bright occurrences provide the observer with extremely precise distances. That is a method that has allowed a value for H0 of 74 to be calculated.

Lucas Lombriser, a professor in the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Faculty of Sciences at UNIGE, explained that for several years these two ideals tended to become more accurate while remaining distinct from each other. He further adds that it didn’t take much to cause a scientific controversy and even awake the thrilling possibility that we may have been dealing with a ‘new physics ‘.

In order to help close the gap, Professor Lombriser entertained the possibility that the universe is not as homogeneous as believed, a theory which on fairly modest scales would seem obvious. There is no question that matter within a galaxy is spread differently than outside of it. However, imagining variations in the average density of matter measured on scales thousands of times greater than a galaxy is more complicated.

The “Hubble Bubble”

“If we were in a sort of giant ‘bubble’, explains Professor Lombriser, in which the density of matter was considerably smaller than the measured density for the whole universe, it would have implications for the distances of the supernovae and eventually for the determination of H0.”

All that would be required would be for this “Hubble bubble” to be big enough to include the galaxy that acts as a guide for distance measurement. By creating a diameter of 250 million light-years for this bubble, the physicist determined that if the density of matter inside was 50 percent smaller than the rest of the universe, a new estimate would be achieved for the Hubble constant, which would then align with the one estimated using the cosmic microwave background.

“The possibility of such a variation on this scale is 1 in 20 to 1 in 5,” says Professor Lombriser, indicating it is not the imagination of a theoretician. In the huge universe, there are many territories, like ours.’’  It seems like there are more and more mysteries of the universe, as we advance in technology and science. But one thing is for sure, we’ve got a lot of mysteries on our hands for now.