IS DARK energy blowing the Universe apart? The idea caught on in 1998 after astronomers noticed that light from distant supernovae seemed to be going astray. Critics said intergalactic dust or strange quantum effects might be responsible, but now there’s evidence from an independent source.
Astronomers compared the distribution of 250,000 nearby galaxies with wrinkles in the cosmic microwave background, which show the distribution of matter in the Universe when it was only 300,000 years old (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol 330, p 29). They say the two only match if you assume dark energy is speeding…
