Physicists call the dark energy that drives the universe “the cosmological constant.” Now the largest map of the cosmos to date hints that this mysterious energy has been changing over billions of years.
Physicists have deduced subtle hints that the mysterious “dark” energy that drives the universe to expand faster and faster may be slightly weakening with time. It’s a finding that has the potential to shake the foundations of physics. “If true, it would be the first real clue we have gotten about the nature of dark energy in 25 years,” said Adam Riess, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University who won the Nobel Prize for co-discovering dark energy in 1998.
” Over the following week, as the researchers combed through the new data set, analyzing it and blending it with other large cosmological data sets, they discovered the source of the oddness and exchanged a flurry of Slack messages. “One of my colleagues posted a plot showing this dark energy constraint and didn’t write any words. Just the plot and an exploding head emoji,” Nadathur said.
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