A University astronomer, working at the Harvard Observatory, has climaxed a lifetime of study on the dimensions of the universe by offering a drastic revision of the present scale of astronomical measurement.
Harlow Shapley '10, Paine Professor of Practical Astronomy, revealed his discoveries at a recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Shapley's new scale of measurement will have a far-reaching effect on existing astronomical cosmologies. According to his findings, the universe is twice as old as was previously thought; its creation probably occurred between three and four billion years ago.
Shapley also believes that the Milky Way, our own galactic system, can no longer be ranked as the largest galaxy. The famed spiral nebula in Andromeda now appears to be at least as large and is actually 1,500,000 light years away, twice as far as the previous figure.
Shapley bases his conclusion chiefly on observations of the globular clusters found within the Magellanic Clouds, companion galaxies to the Milky Way. His scale resolves discrepancies in the brightness of the clusters which had long been a source of difficulty to astronomers.
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