Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt? Dark Energy Independently Confirmed

In 1998 two teams of researchers made a milestone cosmological announcement: The universe, long known to be expanding, was not slowing down in its expansion as expected but was in fact accelerating. Both groups had been studying exploding stars, or supernovae, and used the objects' movement to show that the universe is speeding up. The culprit was labeled dark energy--a hypothesized presence that pervades space and pushes the pieces of the universe apart. [More]

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