This assertion, of course, supposes that the general public had a working understanding of the universe to begin with. Ha!

That said, what Nobel Prize winning physicist Adam Riess is saying is that even the people who thought they had a handle on it may have been wrong.

Specifically, he’s talking about how fast the universe is growing.

The “Hubble constant” currently measures the speed at which the universe is expanding.

That said, different instruments keep providing different values, causing what experts refer to as “Hubble tension.”

Dr. Riess explains in a recent blog post that it could mean we’re off-base when it comes to how we understand the universe as a whole.

“We’ve now spanned the whole range of what Hubble observed, and we can rule out a measurement error as the cause of the Hubble tension with very high confidence.”

The confusion deepend last year, when scientists trying to confirm the Hubble’s numbers ended up confirming the findings of its predecessor instead.

Some point to stellar crowding as the reasons. It occurs when space telescopes see more stars than they can handle, which could affect expansion measurements as the light warps their vision.

NASA, though, thinks the Webb should be able to cut through the noise and emerge with accurate imaging and distance measurements anyway.

Reiss and others think there must be something bigger going on that we don’t understand – something that’s skewing the numbers.

“With measurement errors negated, what remains is the real and exciting possibility we have misunderstood the universe.”

What does that mean?

It means we have to take more pictures, do more calculations, and run more theories through the best and brightest minds on the planet.

Which, you know. Could take some time.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read a story that reveals Earth’s priciest precious metal isn’t gold or platinum and costs over $10,000 an ounce!