Close Menu
Technology Mag

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

    What's Hot

    Scientists Just Caught Human Embryo Implantation on Camera

    August 30, 2025

    US Government Seeks Medical Records of Trans Youth

    August 29, 2025

    Leak suggests new Philips Hue lights will have direct Matter support

    August 29, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Subscribe
    Technology Mag
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube
    • Home
    • News
    • Business
    • Games
    • Gear
    • Reviews
    • Science
    • Security
    • Trending
    • Press Release
    Technology Mag
    Home » The Mysterious ‘Dark’ Energy That Permeates the Universe Is Slowly Eroding
    Science

    The Mysterious ‘Dark’ Energy That Permeates the Universe Is Slowly Eroding

    News RoomBy News RoomMay 23, 20243 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp Email

    Beyond DESI, a slew of new instruments are coming online in the coming years, including the 8.4-meter Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission.

    “Our data in cosmology has made enormous leaps over the last 25 years, and it’s about to make bigger leaps,” Frieman said.

    As they amass new observations, researchers may continue to find that dark energy appears as constant as it has for a generation. Or, if the trend continues in the direction suggested by DESI’s results, it could change everything.

    New Physics

    If dark energy is weakening, it can’t be a cosmological constant. Instead, it may be the same sort of field that many cosmologists think sparked a moment of exponential expansion during the universe’s birth. This kind of “scalar field” could fill space with an amount of energy that looks constant at first—like the cosmological constant—but eventually starts to slip over time.

    “The idea that dark energy is varying is very natural,” said Paul Steinhardt, a cosmologist at Princeton University. Otherwise, he continued, “it would be the only form of energy we know which is absolutely constant in space and time.”

    But that variability would bring about a profound paradigm shift: We would not be living in a vacuum, which is defined as the lowest-energy state of the universe. Instead, we would inhabit an energized state that’s slowly sliding toward a true vacuum. “We’re used to thinking that we’re living in the vacuum,” Steinhardt said, “but no one promised you that.”

    The fate of the cosmos would depend on how quickly the number previously known as the cosmological constant declines, and how far it might go. If it reaches zero, cosmic acceleration would stop. If it dips far enough below zero, the expansion of space would turn to a slow contraction—the sort of reversal required for cyclic theories of cosmology, such as those developed by Steinhardt.

    String theorists share a similar outlook. With their proposal that everything boils down to the vibration of strings, they can weave together universes with different numbers of dimensions and all manner of exotic particles and forces. But they can’t easily construct a universe that permanently maintains a stable positive energy, as our universe has seemed to. Instead, in string theory, the energy must either gently fall over the course of billions of years or violently drop to zero or a negative value. “Essentially, all string theorists believe that it’s one or the other. We do not know which one,” said Cumrun Vafa of Harvard University.

    Observational evidence for a gradual decline of dark energy would be a boon for the gentle-fall scenario. “That would be amazing. It would be the most important discovery since the discovery of dark energy itself,” Vafa said.

    But for now, any such speculations are rooted in the DESI analysis in only the loosest of ways. Cosmologists will have to observe many millions more galaxies before seriously entertaining thoughts of revolution.

    “If this holds up, it could light the way to a new, potentially deeper understanding of the universe,” Riess said. “The next few years should be very revealing.”


    Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Email
    Previous ArticleThese Electric School Buses Are on Their Way to Save the Grid
    Next Article GM will recycle its EV battery scrap with Tesla co-founder’s company

    Related Posts

    Scientists Just Caught Human Embryo Implantation on Camera

    August 30, 2025

    What It’s Like Watching Dozens of Bodies Decompose (for Science)

    August 29, 2025

    NASA’s Largest Satellite Antenna Ever Has Just Unfurled in Space

    August 28, 2025

    IBM and NASA Develop a Digital Twin of the Sun to Predict Future Solar Storms

    August 28, 2025

    Climate Change Is Bringing Legionnaire’s Disease to a Town Near You

    August 27, 2025

    Scientists Have Identified the Origin of an Extraordinarily Powerful Outer-Space Radio Wave

    August 27, 2025
    Our Picks

    US Government Seeks Medical Records of Trans Youth

    August 29, 2025

    Leak suggests new Philips Hue lights will have direct Matter support

    August 29, 2025

    Microsoft’s next annual update for Windows 11 is in Release Preview testing

    August 29, 2025

    TikTok is now letting everyone DM each other with voice memos and pictures

    August 29, 2025
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Pinterest
    • Instagram
    • YouTube
    • Vimeo
    Don't Miss
    News

    Hisense’s take on the Samsung Frame TV is $300 off

    By News RoomAugust 29, 2025

    Hisense’s S7N 55-inch TV doubles as a framed work of art. It’s hard to realize…

    Framework actually did it: I upgraded a laptop’s entire GPU in just three minutes

    August 29, 2025

    The future of AI hardware isn’t one device — it’s an entire ecosystem

    August 29, 2025

    What’s really happening with the hires at Meta Superintelligence Labs

    August 29, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of use
    • Advertise
    • Contact
    © 2025 Technology Mag. All Rights Reserved.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.