Hubble Space Telescope image of spiral galaxy NGC 4603. It is the most distant galaxy with Cepheids used to measure the Hubble Constant.
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NASA
Scientists Find the True Hubble Constant!
News story originally written on May 26, 1999
Scientists have found the real Hubble Constant after 8 years of research. The Hubble Constant is the rate that the Universe is expanding at. They found it to be 70 kilometers per second per megaparsec.
The constant is used to find the age of the Universe. Scientists say the Universe is 12 billion years old. That's a long time!
Special stars called Cepheid variable stars were used. Scientists can use them to find distances between galaxies. The Hubble telescope was named after Edwin Hubble, the first to believe the Universe is expanding.
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