Endless Facts, One Snippet at a Time
Dark Energy: The Mysterious Force Accelerating Expansion
- Dark energy makes up about 70% of the universe, dominating its energy budget.
- It was discovered in the late 1990s when distant supernovae showed expansion was accelerating.
- Unlike gravity, which pulls matter together, dark energy pushes space apart.
- Its effect grows stronger as the universe expands, driving galaxies farther apart.
- Einstein’s “cosmological constant” may have been an early version of dark energy.
- Dark energy determines the universe’s ultimate fate—Big Freeze, Big Rip, or something else.
- It acts uniformly across space, unlike matter which clumps into galaxies.
- Scientists measure its influence using galaxy surveys, supernovae, and the cosmic microwave background.
- Despite its dominance, we still don’t know what dark energy actually is.
- Unlocking its secrets could transform physics more than any discovery since relativity.