For almost a century, we have known that the universe is expanding. For several decades, evidence has suggested that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Crucial to those estimates were the use of standard candles, celestial events of the same luminosity that can be used to measure cosmic distances like milestones on a road. A famous standard candle is a Type Ia supernova, but new research suggests that it might not be as standard as we thought. And this might be a big problem. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Type Ia supernovae are created by a white dwarf exploding. White dwarfs are the end product of stars like our Sun once they have run out of nuclear fuel. They do not normally explode, but if they have a

See Full Page