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What Might Be Speeding Up the Universe’s Expansion?
Physicists have proposed extra cosmic ingredients that could explain the faster-than-expected expansion of space.
How Ancient Light Reveals the Universe’s Contents
A photograph of the infant cosmos reveals the precise amounts of dark matter and dark energy in the universe, leaving precious little room for argument.
No Dark Energy? No Chance, Cosmologists Contend
A study challenged the evidence for the mysterious antigravitational force known as dark energy. Then cosmologists shot back.
What Shape Is the Universe? A New Study Suggests We’ve Got It All Wrong
Most every cosmologist believes the universe is flat. A new analysis argues that it’s closed.
Physics Nobel Honors Early Universe and Exoplanet Discoveries
The astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz won half of the prize for their 1995 discovery of a Jupiter-like planet orbiting a nearby star. The cosmologist James Peebles won the other half for work exploring the structure of the universe.
Cosmologists Debate How Fast the Universe Is Expanding
New measurements could upend the standard theory of the cosmos that has reigned since the discovery of dark energy 21 years ago.
An Italian Cosmologist Who Wanders in Dante’s Dark Wood
A scientist and programmer with a literary bent, Valeria Pettorino thinks multiple angles and diverse points of view are needed to unriddle the nature of dark matter and dark energy.
Dark Energy May Be Incompatible With String Theory
A controversial new paper argues that universes with dark energy profiles like ours do not exist in the “landscape” of universes allowed by string theory.
What Astronomers Are Learning From Gaia’s New Milky Way Map
A roundup of some of the most important discoveries gleaned so far from the Gaia space observatory’s new map of the galaxy.