New Measurements Suggest Universe’s Expansion Rate Disagrees with Earlier Predictions
London-UK, December 12, 2025
Gravitational Lensing Twist: A Deepening Crisis in Cosmology
An international collaboration of astronomers has detected a profound Gravitational Lensing Twist in its latest analysis of galaxy clusters, producing New Measurements that suggest a major, persistent discrepancy in the universe’s fundamental rate of expansion.
The findings, derived from observing the light distortion caused by massive cosmic structures, indicate that the local expansion rate of the universe is significantly faster than the rate derived from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation—the afterglow of the Big Bang.
This deepening tension, referred to by cosmologists as the “Hubble Tension,” suggests the fundamental model of the universe may be flawed and that the Universe’s Expansion Rate Disagrees with Earlier Predictions based on the prevailing Standard Model of Cosmology.
The study utilized data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), focusing on the time-delay effects in strong gravitational lensing systems.
The bending of light around massive objects—Gravitational Lensing—creates multiple images of background objects, and the time it takes for light to arrive via these different paths is a highly precise measure of the universe’s expansion speed.
The New Measurements, which are statistically robust at a 5-sigma level of certainty, confirm the earlier troubling result:
the universe appears to be expanding at approximately 73 kilometers per second per megaparsec (\text{km/s/Mpc}), a rate that is statistically incompatible with the CMB-derived rate of 67.5 \text{ km/s/Mpc}
Headlines Points
Hubble Tension Deepens:
New Measurements from Gravitational Lensing analysis confirm a persistent, statistically significant discrepancy in the universe’s expansion rate.
Expansion Disagreement:
The local rate is measured at approximately 73 \text{ km/s/Mpc}, confirming that the Universe’s Expansion Rate Disagrees with Earlier Predictions from CMB data (67.5 \text{ km/s/Mpc}).
Fundamental Crisis:
The 5-sigma certainty confirms a genuine Crisis in Cosmology, suggesting either a major error in one set of measurements or the need for “New Physics.”
Dark Energy Evolution:Â
The discrepancy suggests the possibility that dark energy, the mysterious force driving the accelerating expansion, may have evolved over cosmic time.
JWST Confirmation:Â
The use of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has allowed for unprecedented precision in measuring the time-delay effects, adding confidence to the higher local rate.
The Crisis in the Standard Model
The confirmed, high-certainty discrepancy means that one of two scenarios must be true: either there is a systematic measurement error that has yet to be identified in either the early-universe (CMB) or late-universe (lensing/supernovae) observations, or the Standard Model of Cosmology, known as the Lambda-CDM model, is incomplete.
Given the extreme precision of both the CMB data from the Planck satellite and the new lensing measurements utilizing JWST, the possibility of a simple error is diminishing.
This leaves the tantalizing possibility of New Physics.
The most exciting theoretical avenue for resolving the Hubble Tension involves rethinking the nature of Dark Energy or Dark Matter. Dark energy is the mysterious force thought to be driving the accelerating expansion of the universe.
If the expansion rate varies significantly between the early and late universe, it suggests that dark energy is not a constant, as the Lambda-CDM model assumes, but rather a dynamic, evolving force.
This could mean that dark energy was weaker in the early universe, causing a slower expansion rate (as measured by the CMB), and has grown stronger over time, causing a faster expansion rate today (as measured by the Gravitational Lensing Twist).
Future of Cosmic Measurement
The New Measurements derived from Gravitational Lensing are crucial because they offer an independent, geometric way of measuring the expansion rate, free from the assumptions associated with the standard ‘cosmic distance ladder’ using supernovae.
The use of the JWST to refine the measurements of the lensed galaxies and quasars provides unprecedented resolution, making the current 73 \text{ km/s/Mpc} result the most reliable late-universe measurement to date.
The resolution of this Crisis in Cosmology will require years of further study. Astronomers are now actively hunting for new evidence of New Physics—potentially new, lightweight particles or a revised understanding of gravity itself—that can account for the approximately 8% difference between the expansion rates.
The tension signals a potentially revolutionary moment in science, demonstrating that despite the extraordinary success of the Standard Model, the universe still holds deep, fundamental secrets about its own origin and ultimate fate.
