{"id":5,"date":"2011-01-14T21:43:05","date_gmt":"2011-01-15T05:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/?p=5"},"modified":"2016-02-13T21:22:44","modified_gmt":"2016-02-14T05:22:44","slug":"rubber-rulers-fundamental-astrophysics-distance-tool-not-constant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/rubber-rulers-fundamental-astrophysics-distance-tool-not-constant\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubber Rulers: Fundamental Astrophysics Distance Tool Not Constant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>News: A fundamental astrophysics distance tool called <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cepheid\">Cepheid stars<\/a> are newly discovered to vary in brightness and mass with age.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4778\" style=\"width: 683px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4778\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4778\" title=\"Cosmological Distance Measuring Sticks &quot;Ladder&quot; and &quot;Standard Candles&quot;\" src=\"http:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/LadderCandles.jpg\" alt=\"Cosmological Distance Measuring Sticks &quot;Ladder&quot; and &quot;Standard Candles&quot;\" width=\"673\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/LadderCandles.jpg 673w, https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/LadderCandles-300x160.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 673px) 100vw, 673px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-4778\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cosmological Distance Measuring Sticks &#8220;Ladder&#8221; and &#8220;Standard Candles&#8221;<\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;<strong>Everything crumbles in cosmology studies if you don&#8217;t start up with the most precise measurements of Cepheids possible<\/strong>,&#8221; said Cepheid research follow-up study lead author <strong>Pauline Barmby<\/strong>, of the University of Western Ontario, Canada.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more-->The stars are called <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cepheid\">Cepheid variables<\/a>. The &#8220;variable&#8221; term means that the stars brighten and dim within very strict time and brightness limits, their actual brightness is directly related to how fast they &#8220;blink.&#8221; This allows us to compare the observed brightness with the &#8220;blink&#8221; calibrated brightness &#8212; making Cepheid variables a very reliable distance tool . . . or so we thought.<\/p>\n<p>The new research found that the pulse rate changes over time probably due to the stars burning up their fuel. This came as a surprise, but probably should have been predicted.<\/p>\n<p>This means the distance to Cepheid stars has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cosmologyscience.com\/glossary.htm#ErrorMargin\">much larger margin of error than previously thought.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The reason this is such a big deal is that the distances to Cepheid stars is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iau.org\/public\/measuring\/\">perhaps the most fundamental cosmological distance measure; all other cosmology distance measurements use this as a baseline reference tool.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>This is not good news for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cosmologyscience.com\/glossary.htm#BigBang\">Big Bang models<\/a> as it gives their universe age a much larger margin of error and weakens the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cosmologyscience.com\/glossary.htm#Expansion\">Expansion conjecture<\/a> probability.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>References:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/1011.3386\">Search for Extended Infrared Emission<\/a>.<br \/>\nP. Barmby, M. Marengo, N. R. Evans, G. Bono, D. Huelsman, K. Y. L. Su, D. L. Welch, G. G. Fazio. Galactic Cepheids with Spitzer. II. The Astronomical Journal, 2011; 141 (2): 42 DOI: 10.1088\/0004-6256\/141\/2\/42<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/1102.0305\">An Infrared Nebula Associated with \u03b4 Cephei: Evidence of Mass Loss? <\/a><br \/>\nM. Marengo, N. R. Evans, P. Barmby, L. D. Matthews, G. Bono, D. L. Welch, M. Romaniello, D. Huelsman, K. Y. L. Su, G. G. Fazio. The Astrophysical Journal, 2010; 725 (2): 2392 DOI: 10.1088\/0004-637X\/725\/2\/2392<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Cosmology Standard Candle Not So Standard After All&#8221;<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2011\/01\/110112143218.htm\"><b>http:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2011\/01\/110112143218.htm<\/b><\/a><b><br \/>\n<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>News: A fundamental astrophysics distance tool called Cepheid stars are newly discovered to vary in brightness and mass with age. &#8220;Everything crumbles in cosmology studies if you don&#8217;t start up with the most precise measurements of Cepheids possible,&#8221; said Cepheid &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/rubber-rulers-fundamental-astrophysics-distance-tool-not-constant\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[24,13,7,15,9,17,8],"tags":[67,284,281],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basic-astrophysics","category-basic-science","category-distance-measuring","category-education","category-models","category-news","category-structure","tag-big-bang","tag-cepheid-variable-stars","tag-pauline-barmby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmologyscience.com\/cosblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}