We actually don’t know the precise value of the Hubble Constant

Big Bang/NASA

Which has an impact on end-of-the-universe scenarios:

Now, using gravitational wave signals from the merger of two black holes and redshift data from one of the most ambitious sky surveys ever conducted, researchers have developed an entirely new way to calculate the Hubble constant. They described the method in a study they submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters and posted on the preprint site arXiv on January 6. In it they report a value of 75.2 for the constant, albeit with a large margin of error (+39.5, –32.4, meaning the actual number could range up to 114.7 or go as low as 42.8). This large uncertainty reflects the fact the calculation comes from a single measurement, and thus does not yet help clear up the tension between the original two calculation methods. But as a proof of concept, the technique is groundbreaking. Only one other measurement, from October 2017, has attempted to calculate the Hubble constant using gravitational waves. Scientists hope future gravitational wave detections will help them improve the precision of their calculation.Jim Daley, “SPACE The Universe’s Fate Rests on the Hubble Constant—Which Has So Far Eluded Astronomers” at Scientific American

Thank goodness we were never in any danger of running out of end-of-the-universe/world/world-as-we-know-it scenarios anyway.

See also: New Findings: Discrepant Values In Universe’s Expansion Make Everything Murkier

and

Is Cosmology “In Crisis” Over How To Measure The Universe?

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