The universe is expanding more rapidly than we previously thought, which is not particularly ideal

NASA has made a surprising discovery, that means the universe could become inhospitable slightly sooner than we thought.

THE universe is expanding significantly more quickly than previously thought.

That is the discovery made by NASA this week after gathering data from the space agency’s Hubble Space Telescope that showed the universe is expanding five to nine per cent faster than expected.

The discovery will be published in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical journal and has come as a surprise to scientists.

NASA thinks the finding will shed light on the more unknown parts of the universe and could lead to a new understanding of concepts such as dark matter and dark energy.

“This surprising finding may be an important clue to understanding those mysterious parts of the universe that make up 95 per cent of everything and don’t emit light, such as dark energy, dark matter and dark radiation,” said study leader Adam Riess, from the Space Telescope Science Institute and The Johns Hopkins University.

Riess and his team, which included co-author Dr Brad Tucker from the Australian National University, were able to make the discovery by improving the precision of how they measure the distance of far off galaxies.

There are a few theories as to what’s causing the higher than expected rate of expansion.

One theory is that dark energy — already believed to be the source of the accelerating universe — is simply thrusting planets away from each other with more strength than previously thought.

Another theory suggests a mysterious force dubbed dark radiation is responsible. This idea posits that in the earlier stages of existence, the universe contained a subatomic particle that travelled at the speed of light and the extra energy is complicating our calculations.

A third idea is that there is something missing from Einstein’s theory of gravity that we are currently unaware of.

In the centre of this image, taken with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, are two faint galaxies that seem to be smiling.

‘A DEATH WARRANT FOR INTELLIGENT LIFE’

The universe has been expanding outwards in all directions ever since the big bang some 13.8 billion years ago.

However this turns out to be a somewhat problematic state of affairs. According to world renowned theoretical physicist Dr Brian Greene, as a result of our ever expanding universe, it will become increasingly more difficult for us to study its contents.

“Right now we are in a very privileged position because the deep truth about how the universe is put together is still available to our telescopes. It won’t always be the case,” Dr Greene told news.com.au back in March.

Due to the accelerated expansion of the universe, distant galaxies will eventually move so far away that it will likely be impossible for us to observe them from Earth.

Not only will it be more difficult to observe stars, planets and gas — which only make up five per cent of the universe — it also means the universe is slowly dying, astronomers say.

The fact this it is growing ever outward, the universe will become exponentially more sparse, cold and inhospitable.

It will become “more spread out, more defuse, ever colder”. Until particles are “wafting through an otherwise silent universe. And in that sense the universe is heading to a kind of death. That’s just how it is,” Dr Greene said.

While scenarios described by Dr Greene would take roughly a trillion years to transpire, such a reality has led theoretical physicist Michio Kaku to describe the laws of the universe as “a death warrant for intelligent life”.

And now we think it’s happening just a little bit faster.

This image provided by NASA shows a barred spiral galaxy 130 million light-years away and is one of the measurements that astronomers used to come up with a faster rate of expansion of the universe. Picture: NASA