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It really is about regime change in Libya (The Week)

Forexfloor.org New York – Ignore the president’s hysterical critics. Obama’s aim is to topple Gadhafi — and he knows the stakes are high The commentary on the president’s course in Libya has been instinctively adversarial. Much of the press may be compensating for its cheerleading...

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Have scientists cracked the speed at which the universe is expanding? (The Week)

Posted by admin | Posted in Finance | Posted on 24-03-2011

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New York – Yes — and you’ll be pleased to know the magic figure is 73.8 km/sec/megaparsec. So… what the heck does that mean?

Scientists discovered in 1998 that not only is the universe expanding, but it’s expanding at a rate that continues to accelerate. Now, using the brightness of a specific type of star and supernova as a guide, they’ve been able to work out exactly how much faster that expansion happens as the universe grows. Hint — it’s very, very fast indeed. Here, a quick guide:

So, how fast is the universe expanding?
The universe is expanding at 73.8 kilometers per second per 3.26 million light years, give or take 2.4 km, according to a study published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Uh, what?
The expansion of space means that galaxies are speeding away from us. The farther away they get, the faster they move. So, according to this equation, a galaxy 3.26 million light years away — or one megaparsec — is moving away from us at around 73.8 kilometers per second. A galaxy two megaparsecs away would be travelling twice as quickly, and so on.

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