Just when scientists thought they had an understanding of the inner workings of the cosmos, it throws them for another loop.

A team of astronomers have calculated that , according to therelease from NASA. If their new findings are correct, then science’s basic understanding of what’s been going on in the universe for the past 13.8 billion years could be inaccurate. Their findings were released in a study Thursday.

"This surprising finding may be an important clue to understanding those mysterious parts of the universe that make up 95 percent of everything and don't emit light, such as dark energy, dark matter, and dark radiation," study leader and Nobel Laureate Adam Riess said in the release. Riess won the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics for proving in 1998 that the universe is accelerating. Now, he and many of his same colleagues are trying to determine where astronomy made a wrong turn.

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, , the Associated Press reports. They came up with a number that is 5 to 9 percent faster than other scientifically accepted measurements that calculate the expansion rate

(MORE: )

By refining the universe’s current expansion rate to unprecedented accuracy, which dropped the uncertainty to 2.4 percent. They were able to make their refinements by developing techniques that improved the precision of distance measurements to faraway galaxies.

"If we know the initial amounts of stuff in the universe, such as dark energy and dark matter, and we have the physics correct, then you can go from a measurement at the time shortly after the big bang and use that understanding to predict how fast the universe should be expanding today," said Riess. "However, if this discrepancy holds up, it appears we may not have the right understanding, and it changes how big the Hubble constant should be today."

Riess and co-author Alex Filippenko say there are many possible explanations for why the universe is expanding faster now, according to AP. One possibility is that there’s a mystery particle, or a sterile neutrino, that hasn’t been seen but could change calculations to make the cosmic calculations even out. Or, it could be that dark energy is increasing. Or it could be the measurements are off.

“It's as if we're looking for someone and we're in the right room, but looking at the wrong wall,” Riess told AP.

"There's potentially something very exciting, very interesting that the data are trying to tell us about the universe," said Filippenko.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: NASA Images of the Cosmos

A view of Saturn's rings during equinox seen through Cassini's aid angle camera on Aug. 12, 2009. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)