Innovative Techniques Reveal Insights into Universe's Age and Expansion.

Astronomers have presented a new way to measure cosmic expansion that doesn't rely on the cosmic distance ladder or the cosmic microwave background. The technique involves a supernova and gravitational lensing. By observing multiple appearances of a supernova nicknamed Refsdal, the team calculated the actual distance of the lensed light paths and determined the true distance of the lensing galaxy. From this, they calculated a Hubble parameter of 63-70 (km/s)/Mpc, which best agrees with the Cosmic Microwave Background result. This is only one result, but it's a good start to solving the Hubble tension problem.