unclebobmartin on Nostr: In the late 90s a team of researchers studied a large number of these events, ...
In the late 90s a team of researchers studied a large number of these events, reaching extreme distances, and therefore extremely far back in time. By measuring the red-shift of the spectra of those events they calculated how fast they were being carried away from us by the expanding universe -- and they discovered something very strange.
We expected that the mutual gravity of all the galaxies, and all the matter in the universe should be slowing the expansion of the universe down. After all it takes energy to climb against a gravitational field; and that energy loss must be slowing things down.
What the researchers found, instead, is that the expansion of the universe is speeding up. This means some kind of energy is being pumped into the universe that opposes the inward tug of gravity and pushes the galaxies away from each other ever faster and faster as time goes by.
We call that new energy "Dark Energy" -- and we have no idea what it is or where it comes from.
We expected that the mutual gravity of all the galaxies, and all the matter in the universe should be slowing the expansion of the universe down. After all it takes energy to climb against a gravitational field; and that energy loss must be slowing things down.
What the researchers found, instead, is that the expansion of the universe is speeding up. This means some kind of energy is being pumped into the universe that opposes the inward tug of gravity and pushes the galaxies away from each other ever faster and faster as time goes by.
We call that new energy "Dark Energy" -- and we have no idea what it is or where it comes from.