Dark Energy, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 27, 2014

Does Dark Energy Spring From the 'Quantum Vacuum?'

The mysterious dark energy that's driving the universe's accelerated expansion may have its roots in the background vacuum energy that pervades all of the cosmos, a new study suggests. What we think is happening is a dynamic effect of the quantum vacuum, a parameter that we can calculate, co-author Joan...

May 26, 2017

Dark Energy May Lurk in the Nothingness of Space

A new study may help reveal the nature of dark energy, the mysterious substance that is pushing the universe to expand outward. Dark energy may emerge from fluctuations in the nothingness of empty space, a new hypothesis suggests. That idea, in turn, could also explain why the cosmological constant, a...

Jun 26, 2018

Aliens May Be Rearranging Stars to Fight Dark Energy, Awesome Study Suggests

How to dominate the universe in three easy steps … Step 1: Harvest all of your planet's resources. Step 2: Harvest all of your nearest star's energy. Step 3: Harvest all the energy from all the stars in your local galaxy; then move on to another galaxy. Congratulations! Your species...

Jan 30, 2019

Dark Energy Gets Weirder: Mysterious Force May Vary Over Time

Scientists first proposed the existence of this invisible force two decades ago, to explain the surprising discovery that the universe's expansion is accelerating. (Surprising and incredibly important; the find netted three researchers the Nobel Prize in physics in 2011.) The most-used astrophysical model of the universe's structure and evolution regards...

Jul 3, 2019

Exotic 'Early Dark Energy' Could Be the Missing Link That Explains the Universe's Expansion

There may be an exotic form of dark energy lurking in the universe, and it could explain a stubborn discrepancy in measurements of the universe's expansion rate. This so-called early dark energy might have existed in the universe’s infancy, then flickered out of existence soon after. That, in turn, would...

Jul 12, 2019

New Dark Energy Data Emerges from Misshapen, Distorted, Ancient Voids

There are voids in the universe, and we can't see them properly. And that's a good thing. These voids — giant, irregular gaps in space that are empty of galaxies — are all over the cosmos. But, because they are empty, astronomers can't directly observe them. Instead, they spot them...

Oct 30, 2019

5,000 Mini-Eyes Just Blinked Open to Scan the Skies for Dark Energy

Thousands of tiny eyes just blinked open and will soon scan 35 million galaxies for evidence of dark energy. These 5,000 mini-telescopes make up the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), which was installed on the Mayall Telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. Astronomers recently completed the first...

Jan 10, 2020

Dark Energy Is Real, Despite Claim to the Contrary

A new study suggests that dark energy might not be real after all. But other scientists have found major flaws with this bold claim. Dark energy is a mysterious and hypothetical form of energy that is used to explain the accelerating expansion of our universe. One way that scientists have...

Jan 5, 2021

Is there more than one dark energy?

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of How to Die in Space. He contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Opinions and Insights. We don't know what's behind dark energy, the name...

Mar 24, 2021

Dark energy camera takes hyper-detailed images of nearby dwarf galaxies

New, stunningly detailed images of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds may revolutionize our understanding of the stars making up these two dwarf galaxies. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are a pair of dwarf galaxies that neighbor our Milky Way. Their proximity means these satellite galaxies allow astronomers to...

Jun 7, 2021

Did a dark energy discovery just prove Einstein wrong? Not quite.

The largest galaxy survey ever made suggests that our cosmos isn't as clumpy as it's supposed to be. That lack of clumpiness could mean there's a discrepancy with Einstein's theory of general relativity, which scientists use to understand how the structures in our universe have evolved over 13 billion years....

Jan 13, 2022

Largest dark energy map could reveal the fate of the universe

A modified telescope in Arizona has produced an interim map, which is already the largest three-dimensional map of the universe ever — and the instrument is only about a tenth of the way through its five-year mission. The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), a collaboration between Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory...

Feb 16, 2023

What Is dark energy?

Dark energy is an enigmatic phenomenon that acts in opposition to gravity and is responsible for accelerating the expansion of the universe. Though dark energy constitutes up to three-fourths of the mass-energy of the cosmos, its underlying nature has eluded physicists for decades. Dark energy has no real connections to...

Feb 23, 2023

Dark energy could lead to a second (and third, and fourth) Big Bang, new research suggests

Will the universe end in a bang or a whimper? A pair of theoretical physicists have proposed a third path: perhaps the universe will never end. In a study that attempts to define the nature of dark energy — a mysterious phenomenon thought to be causing the universe to expand...

Jun 20, 2023

The expansion of the universe could be a mirage, new theoretical study suggests

The expansion of the universe could be a mirage, a potentially controversial new study suggests. This rethinking of the cosmos also suggests solutions for the puzzles of dark energy and dark matter, which scientists believe account for around 95% of the universe's total energy and matter but remain shrouded in...