Breaking SDSS News: A One-Percent Measure of the Universe

We are here live at the American Astronomical Society meeting in National Harbor, Maryland, where this afternoon the SDSS announced some exciting new results. We have used Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs) to measure the most precise distances to galaxies all the way across the universe. This illustration shows how this technique works: we know from the early history of the Universe that galaxies are more likely to be separated by 450 million light-years than 350 or 550 million. We can use that knowledge to make highly accurate distance measurements, which tell us about the nature of the Universe we live in.

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Image credit: Zosia Rostomian, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Read more about it in our press release!

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