The longest "rulers" in the universe -- Gamma-Ray Bursts associated with Kilonovae are the new standard candles

An international collaborative research group led by Maria Dinotti (Senior Research Scientist, iTHEMS) and Shigehiko Nagataki (Deputy Program Director, iTHEMS) has discovered that gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), which occur simultaneously with kilonovae, are effective as standard candles for measuring the distance of the universe.

The results of this research show the potential to make use of GRBs for cosmology in the near future, to estimate the amount of dark energy and dark matter in the universe.