Gamma-ray Bursts can Help Astronomers Measure Vast Distances Across the Universe - by BrianKoberlein
Now that the James Webb Space Telescope is operational, astronomers can study some of the most faint and distant galaxies ever seen. By some accounts, we may have already captured the image of a galaxy from when the universe was just 300 million years old. But we can’t be entirely sure of its distance, and that is a big problem for astronomers.
How do you measure the distance of the farthest galaxy? If you’re an astronomer, you rely on its observed redshift. Since the universe is expanding, the more distant the galaxy, the more redshifted its light. To calculate the galaxy’s distance, astronomers plug the redshift into a formula derived from the. By observing everything from variable stars to distant supernovae, we know the relationship between redshift and distance really well. So do the math, and get the distance.
Of course, the most distant galaxies are farther away than the calibrating observations of the standard model. We can extrapolate the standard model for these galaxy distances, but that assumes the cosmic acceleration wasn’t radically different way back then. There’s no reason to assume our assumption is wrong, but it would be nice to get distance measurements at the limits of Webb’s galaxies.
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