New clues to one of the cosmos’s largest research to this day suggests that the mysterious dark energy may be evolving in ways that can change the way astronomers understand the universe.
Dark energy is a term scientists use to describe an energy or force that accelerates the expansion of the universe. But-although it represents 70% of the energy in the cosmos-researchers still do not know exactly what dark energy is, Mustapha Ishak-Bosshaki, professor of physics and astrophysics at the University of Texas in Dallas.
Ishak-Bosshaki is co-president of a working group of the collaboration of the dark energy spectroscopic instrument known as Desi. The instrument, now in its fourth year of heaven observation, can observe the light of 5,000 galaxies at the same time. When the project is completed next year, it will have measured the light of about 50 million galaxies.
Collaboration, which includes more than 900 researchers, shared the latest data dissemination from the first three years of Desi observations on March 19. Among his findings are the measurements of almost 15 million galaxies and quasars, some of the brightest objects in the universe. Ishak-Bosshak helped lead the analysis of the last dissemination of Desi data, which suggests that dark energy-a long time called “cosmological constant,” as astronomers thought it was unchanging-they are behaving unexpectedly and may even be weakening over time.
“The discovery of dark energy, almost 30 years ago, was the biggest surprise of my scientific life,” said David Weinberg, professor of astronomy at Ohio State University who contributed to the analysis of Desi in a statement. “These new measurements offer the strongest evidence so far that dark energy evolves, which would be another impressive change in our understanding of how the universe works.”
The findings bring astronomers a step closer to unraveling the mysterious nature of dark energy, which may mean that the standard model of how the universe works may also need an update, scientists say.
A deep look at the universe
The Spectroscopic Dark Energy Instrument is located in the Nicholas U. 4-meter Mayall Telescope from the National Science Foundation at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. The 5,000 “eyes” of the instrument’s fiber optic and its extensive research capabilities are allowing scientists to build one of the largest 3D maps in the universe and trace how dark energy has influenced and shaped the cosmos for the past 11 billion years.
The light of celestial objects like Galaxies takes time to reach Earth, which means that Desi can effectively see what cosmos like at different times, from billion years ago to the present.
“Desi is different from any other machine in terms of its ability to observe independent objects simultaneously,” said John Moustakas, professor of physics at Siena College and collide of data dissemination.
The latest findings include data on more than double the cosmic objects that were researched and presented less than a year ago. These 2024 revelations were the first to suggest how dark energy may be evolving.
“We are in the business of letting the universe tell us how it works, and perhaps the universe is telling us that it is more complicated than we thought,” said Andrei Ceu, Postdoctoral researcher at the US Department of Energy Berkeley National Laboratory, which manages the Desi-Alfa de DesiFa de Desiça de Desição in a statement. “It’s interesting and it gives us more confidence to see that many different lines of evidence point in the same direction.”
Increasing cosmic evidence
Desi can measure what scientists call the baronic acoustic oscillation scale, or Bao – essentially as events that occurred at the beginning of the universe left standards in the distribution of matter by the cosmos. Astronomers consider the BAO scale, with separations of about 480 million light years, such as a standard ruler.
“This separation scale is like a really gigantic ruler in space we can use to measure distances, and we use the combination of these distances and deviations to red (speed with which objects move away from us) to measure the expansion of the universe,” said Paul Martini, analysis coordinator and astronomy teacher at Ohio State University.
Measuring the influence of dark energy throughout the history of the universe shows how dominant this force has been.
The researchers began to notice when they combined these observations with other light measurements through the universe, such as exploding stars, the light distorted by the severity of distant galaxies and the remaining light of the beginning of the universe, called Cosmic Background radiation, the Desi data show that the impact of dark energy may be weakening over time.
“If this continues, eventually dark energy will no longer be the dominant force in the universe,” said Ishak-Bosshak by email. “Therefore, the expansion of the universe will no longer accelerate and go to a constant rate or, in some models, it may even stop and collapse. Of course, these futures are very distant and will take billions and billions of years to happen. I work with the issue of cosmic acceleration for 25 years, and from my perspective, if the evidence continues to grow, and it is likely that it will be huge for cosmology and all physics.”
Solving a lasting mystery
There is still not enough evidence to declare a revolutionary discovery that definitely says that dark energy is evolving and weakening, but this may change in just a few years, Ishak-Bosshak said.
“My first big question is whether we will continue to see evidence of dark energy evolving as our measurements improve,” said Martini. “If we get to the point where the evidence is overwhelming, then my next questions will be: How does dark energy evolve? And what are the most likely physical explanations?”
The new data set can also help astrophysicists better understand how black galaxies and holes evolve and the nature of dark matter. Although dark matter has never been detected, it is believed to be 85% of the total matter of the universe.
Scientists involved in collaboration are eager to improve their measurements using the Desi.
“Whatever the nature of dark energy, it will shape the future of our universe,” said Michael Levi, director of the Desi and Scientist of the National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley. “It’s quite remarkable that we can look to heaven with our telescopes and try to answer one of the greatest questions humanity has ever asked.”
A new experiment called Spec-S5, or spectroscopic experiment stage 5, could measure more than 10 times more galaxies than Desi to study both dark energy and dark matter, said Martini.
“Spec-S5 would use telescopes in both North and South hemispheres to map galaxies throughout the sky,” said Martini. “We are also excited about how the Telescope (Vera) Rubin will study supernovae and provide a new uniform data set to study the history of expansion (from the universe).”
Other spatial observatories, such as Euclid space telescope and Nancy Grace Roman space telescope, scheduled for 2027, will also contribute to more important dark matter measurements and dark energy in the coming years that can help fill the gaps, said Jason Rhodes, observational cosmologist at NASA jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, California. Rhodes, who is not involved in Desi, is the US scientific leader for Euclid and the main researcher of NASA’s dark energy science team to Euclid.
Rhodes, who considers the results intriguing, said the data show a mild but persistent tension between the measurements of the early days of the universe and those of the later universe. “This means that our simplest model of dark energy does not exactly allow the primitive universe we observe evolve to the late universe we observe,” said Rhodes.
“The results of Desi (and some other recent results) seem to indicate that a more complex dark energy model is preferred. This is truly exciting because it may mean that a new, unknown physics rules the evolution of the universe. Desi has given us tempting results that may indicate that a new cosmology model is necessary.”
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This content was originally published in dark energy may be evolving and changing our understanding of the universe on the CNN Brazil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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