Dark Energy News - SciTechDaily

Beyond Gravity: UC Berkeley’s Quantum Leap in Dark Energy Research

Robert Sanders, University of California - Berkeley — Sat, 29 Jun 2024 02:21:56 +0000

Experiment captures atoms in free fall to look for gravitational anomalies caused by the Universe’s missing energy. Researchers at UC Berkeley have enhanced the precision of gravity experiments using an atom interferometer combined with an optical lattice, significantly extending the time atoms can be held in free fall. Despite not yet finding deviations from Newton’s [...]

Beyond Einstein: Groundbreaking Map of the Universe Redefines Cosmic Models

University of Texas at Dallas — Sun, 09 Jun 2024 14:06:52 +0000

The DESI collaboration is examining the universe’s accelerating expansion through comprehensive mapping from its early stages to the present. Their findings challenge traditional cosmic models and suggest new insights into dark energy, all while utilizing groundbreaking, unbiased research methods. A team of researchers, including an astrophysicist from The University of Texas at Dallas, as part [...]

How Thermodynamics Unlocks the Secrets of an Expanding Universe

José Tadeu Arantes, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 10:17:31 +0000

The shift from a decelerating expansion regime (in the radiation- and matter-dominated era) to an accelerating expansion regime (in the dark energy-dominated era) resembles a thermodynamic phase transition, according to an article in Results in Physics by scientists affiliated with São Paulo State University. The idea that the Universe is expanding dates from almost a [...]

Unraveling Dark Energy and Cosmic Expansion With an 11-Ton Time Machine

Mike Peña, University of California, Santa Cruz — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 00:12:53 +0000

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), mounted on a telescope in Arizona, has created the largest 3-D map of the cosmos, mapping over 30 million galaxies and 3 million quasars. This monumental task, a collaboration of over 900 researchers, helps us understand the universe’s expansion and the role of dark energy. We now have the [...]

Dark Energy Revealed Through Largest 3D Map of the Universe Ever Made

Lauren Biron, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 20:48:13 +0000

Researchers have used the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument to make the largest 3D map of our universe and world-leading measurements of dark energy, the mysterious cause of its accelerating expansion. DESI mapped galaxies and quasars with unprecedented detail, creating the largest 3D map of the universe ever made and measuring how fast the universe expanded [...]

Science Simplified: What Are Dark Matter and Dark Energy?

Argonne National Laboratory — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 04:01:30 +0000

What Are Dark Matter and Dark Energy? There’s something amiss in the cosmos. Mysterious influences seem to be stretching the universe apart and clumping stuff together in unexpected ways, but we can’t see or touch them. Scientists call these influences dark energy and dark matter. Humans have studied the sky for many thousands of years, [...]

AI Unlocks the Secrets of Dark Energy in Groundbreaking Study

University College London (UCL) — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 17:23:09 +0000

A UCL-led research team has used artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to infer the influence and properties of dark energy more precisely from a map of dark and visible matter in the Universe covering the last seven billion years. The study, carried out by the Dark Energy Survey collaboration, doubled the precision at which key characteristics [...]

Deciphering the Dark: The Accelerating Universe and the Quest for Dark Energy

Chelsea Gohd, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory — Sun, 10 Mar 2024 08:32:48 +0000

Dark energy’s role in propelling the universe’s accelerated expansion presents a pivotal challenge in astrophysics, driving ongoing research and space missions dedicated to uncovering the nature of this mysterious force. Some 13.8 billion years ago, the universe began with a rapid expansion we call the Big Bang. After this initial expansion, which lasted a fraction [...]

Exposing Dark Matter: Euclid Is on the Trail of the Dark Side of the Universe

Max Planck Institute for Astronomy — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 08:19:56 +0000

Euclid space telescope delivers first scientific images. Two things are needed to understand how the universe came into being and how it has evolved to its present form. Cosmological computer models employ the laws of physics to depict the universe’s expected appearance today, while observations made with telescopes check whether these models are correct. The [...]

Cambridge Researchers Discover New Way To Measure Dark Energy

University of Cambridge — Sat, 23 Sep 2023 12:09:22 +0000

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have discovered a new way to measure dark energy – the mysterious force that makes up more than two-thirds of the universe and is responsible for its accelerating expansion – in our own cosmic backyard. The researchers found that it may be possible to detect and measure dark energy [...]

Universe Defies Einstein’s Predictions: Cosmic Structure Growth Mysteriously Suppressed

University of Michigan — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:21:26 +0000

Scientists have discovered that cosmic structures grow slower than Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity predicts, with dark energy playing a more dominant inhibitory role than previously thought. This finding may reshape our understanding of dark matter, dark energy, and fundamental cosmic theories. As the universe evolves, scientists expect large cosmic structures to grow at a [...]

At the Universe’s Edge – Scientists Put Einstein and Euler to the Test

University of Geneva — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 20:53:17 +0000

A team from the University of Geneva has developed the first method for testing together Einstein’s and Euler’s theories for the accelerating expansion of the Universe and dark matter. The universe serves as a unique testing ground for the laws of physics, particularly the laws proposed by Euler and Einstein. Euler’s laws shed light on [...]

On the Trail of a Mysterious Force in Space – Scientists Shed New Light on Dark Energy

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 06:21:45 +0000

An initial study of dark energy using eROSITA suggests that it is evenly dispersed across both space and time. Edwin Hubble’s observation of distant galaxies in the 1920s led to the groundbreaking conclusion that our universe is in a state of expansion. It wasn’t until 1998, though, when scientists studying Type Ia supernovae came to [...]

Unveiling Cosmic Mysteries: Euclid Launches on Epic Voyage To Map the Universe’s Dark Side

Jet Propulsion Laboratory — Sun, 02 Jul 2023 23:36:18 +0000

NASA is contributing to the European Space Agency mission, which will complement dark energy studies by the agency’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The ESA (European Space Agency) Euclid spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 11:12 a.m. EDT on Saturday, July 1, beginning its mission to study why [...]

Euclid “Dark Universe” Space Telescope Lifts Off on Quest To Unravel Deepest Cosmic Mysteries

European Space Agency (ESA) — Sun, 02 Jul 2023 09:17:05 +0000

ESA’s Euclid spacecraft lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA, at 11:12 a.m. EDT on July 1, 2023. The successful launch marks the beginning of an ambitious mission to uncover the nature of two mysterious components of our Universe: dark matter and dark energy, and [...]

Unraveling the Universe: Groundbreaking Measurement Shakes Up Physics

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 02:58:12 +0000

When it comes to measuring how fast the Universe is expanding, the result depends on which side of the Universe you start from. An EPFL study has calibrated the best cosmic yardsticks to unprecedented accuracy, shedding new light on the Hubble tension. The Hubble tension, a discrepancy in the cosmic expansion rate (H0) between early [...]

“Cosmological Coupling” – New Evidence Points to Black Holes as Source of Dark Energy

University of Hawaii at Manoa — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 02:37:50 +0000

Searching through existing data spanning 9 billion years, a team of researchers led by scientists at the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa has uncovered the first evidence of “cosmological coupling” – a newly predicted phenomenon in Einstein’s theory of gravity, possible only when black holes are placed inside an evolving universe. Astrophysicists Duncan Farrah and [...]

Physicists Discover a New Approach for Solving the Bizarre Dark Energy Mystery

University of Luxembourg — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 03:19:17 +0000

What is behind dark energy — and what connects it to the cosmological constant introduced by Albert Einstein? Two physicists from the University of Luxembourg point the way to answering these open questions of physics. The universe has a number of bizarre properties that are difficult to understand with everyday experience. For example, the matter [...]

Supernova Explosions Reveal Precise Details of Dark Energy and Dark Matter

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics — Sun, 23 Oct 2022 15:06:10 +0000

An analysis of more than two decades’ worth of supernova explosions convincingly boosts modern cosmological theories and reinvigorates efforts to answer fundamental questions. A powerful new analysis has been performed by astrophysicists that places the most precise limits ever on the composition and evolution of the universe. With this analysis, dubbed Pantheon+, cosmologists find themselves [...]

NASA Scientists Probe Dark Energy – Time To Rework Albert Einstein’s Theory of Gravity?

Calla Cofield, Jet Propulsion Laboratory — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 08:40:00 +0000

Could one of the biggest puzzles in astrophysics be solved by reworking Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity? Not yet, according to a new study co-authored by NASA scientists. The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, and physicists don’t know why. This phenomenon seems to contradict everything scientists understand about gravity’s effect on the cosmos: [...]

Astronomy & Astrophysics 101: Dark Energy

ESA/Hubble — Sat, 28 May 2022 08:15:06 +0000

What Is Dark Energy? Dark energy is the name given to the as yet unknown energy source that is causing our Universe’s expansion to accelerate. Our Universe is expanding. One of the great mysteries of modern astronomy is that the expansion rate appears to be accelerating. The as yet unknown energy source causing this expansion [...]

Dark Energy Vs. Modified Gravity: NASA’s Roman Mission Will Test Competing Cosmic Acceleration Theories

Ashley Balzer, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 09:25:04 +0000

A team of scientists has predicted the science return from one of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s groundbreaking planned surveys, which will analyze millions of galaxies strewn across space and time. The mission’s enormous, deep panoramas will provide the best opportunity yet to discern between the leading theories about what’s speeding up the universe’s [...]

Is Dark Energy Just an Illusion? Neutron Stars Will Tell Us

Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 02:49:44 +0000

SISSA scientists provide the first simulation of neutron star collisions in extensions of general relativity relevant for cosmology, offering a new approach to test gravity. A huge amount of mysterious dark energy is necessary to explain cosmological phenomena, such as the accelerated expansion of the Universe, with Einstein’s theory. But what if dark energy was [...]

Shadow of Cosmic Water Cloud Reveals Secrets of Early Universe – Confirms Properties of Dark Energy

University of Cologne — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 00:12:38 +0000

An international group of astrophysicists has discovered a new method to estimate the cosmic microwave background temperature of the young Universe only 880 million years after the Big Bang. It is the first time that the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation – a relic of the energy released by the Big Bang – [...]