Dark energy

Stellar wormholes could link stars with tunnels of phantom matter

A seriously strange new theory says that stars may be connected through a system of stellar wormholes, linking distant pairs of stars thanks to an exotic material known only as phantom matter. Oh yes, this is going to get weird. The idea comes from a team of physicists in the central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan.…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Mar 6

Watch the world’s first dark energy detector take shape

This massive camera is about to head to Chile on a five-year mission to find evidence of dark energy. And now, through the magic of time-lapse photography, you can watch as Fermilab technicians bring the future of science to life. The camera has 74 total sensors and an overall resolution of 570 megapixels, making it…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Nov 22

Watch a 570MP, Dark Energy-Hunting Camera Be Built In Just Four Minutes

This camera weighs four tons. Its shutter and filter are both nearly five feet tall. And its job is to unlock the secrets of our universe’s dark energy. Here’s how they built it. https://gizmodo.com/570-megapixel-digital-camera-is-the-mother-and-the-fath-5447137 What you’re watching is 6% of the images captured of the camera’s ten-month construction at Chicago’s Fermilab. Construction is about 80%…

Space & Spaceflight Brian Barrett Nov 12

A Mysterious Force Is Pulling Pioneer 10 Back Toward the Sun

I kind of dig space—especially the unexplained—so today I’m in a bit of a tizzy. Pioneer 10, you see—which left our solar system in 1983—is slowly being drawn back toward the Sun by an unknown force. https://gizmodo.com/get-ready-humanity-because-space-is-a-freak-show-5238308 No, it’s not gravity, it’s something else. Something mysterious. Something barely perceptible that is tugging at the probe…

Space & Spaceflight Jack Loftus Sep 19

The first picture that really shows dark matter

That heart-shaped purple glow amidst that cluster of galaxies isn’t bursting with love — it’s dark matter, as measured by NASA’s Cosmic Lens, and it may be our best clue to the mysterious nature of dark energy. According to NASA: For the first time, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope were able to take advantage…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders Aug 26

Are physicists just making up dark energy?

In this week’s “Ask a Physicist,” I get defensive about dark energy. It dominates the universe; it’s completely absurd; and it’s apparently absolutely necessary. I’ve been putting off talking about dark energy for a while. I was afraid that you’d judge me, and all cosmologists, as being charlatans. But I can’t put it off any…

io9 Dr. Dave Goldberg Aug 10

New cosmic mapping method may be just what we need to find dark energy

Three-fourths of the universe’s matter and energy is thought to be dark energy, the mysterious thing that is causing universal expansion to accelerate. A new way of mapping huge cosmic structures might finally shed some light on this dark energy. The universe’s accelerating expansion was first discovered in 1998, and astrophysicists have spent the last…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Jul 24

You Light Up My Life. Or Do You? Bright Stars and Dark Energy

For decades astronomers have used the Astronomical Magnitude Scale to measure the brightness of stars. But what if they’re measuring with an inaccurate ruler? And how could that screw up the quest to understand dark energy? The Astronomical Magnitude Scale (see bottom of post) is a logarithmic scale used to measure the brightness of stars…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Feb 11

Theoretical Warp Drives Theorized To Be Black Hole-Creating Doomsday Devices

I still think we should and will reach the stars, but today I’m forced to concede that using a theoretical “warp drive” might not be the best way to go: https://gizmodo.com/why-we-need-to-reach-the-stars-and-we-will-5247705 You see, while warp drives are all sorts of fun within the confines of Star Trek, when they’re applied to the real world—which must…

Space & Spaceflight Jack Loftus Jun 14

More Evidence that Dark Energy Is Ripping the Universe Apart

At a press conference today, NASA announced new measurements from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory confirm the existence of “dark energy” that is causing the universe to expand – and disintegrate – at a rapid clip. Dark energy is a theory among astrophysicists that there is a force pulling galaxies apart – a force that that…

io9 Annalee Newitz Dec 16

Earth: A Very Special Place In the Void

You know that “I’m an insignificant dot in the middle of this enormous universe” feeling you get when you stare up into the night sky a little too long? Well, some Oxford scientists think you might be a little more special than that – or at least, the planet you live on is. Their radical…

io9 Ed Grabianowski Sep 29

Heaviest, Farthest Cluster Points Toward Dark Energy

The XMM-Newton space telescope has been really into dark and heavy stuff lately. No, the x-ray observatory didn’t find its parents’ old Black Sabbath albums — it found the most massive galactic cluster on record, a conglomerate of galaxies weighing more than 1,000 times as much as the Milky Way. The cluster’s extreme distance is…

io9 Ed Grabianowski Sep 3

Ultracold Polar Telescope Searches for Dark Energy

Is an invisible, undetectable force tearing the universe apart? The South Pole Telescope is scanning the skies for signs of dark energy to help pinpoint the cause of cosmic expansion. The answers it provides could allow us to better explain the origin of the universe and its ultimate fate. Earlier this week I pondered whether…

io9 Ed Grabianowski Apr 4

Is Dark Energy the New Aether?

You may think physics has changed over the past 200 years, but it hasn’t. Today, theoretical physicists can’t understand why the universe is expanding at an observed rate that doesn’t quite mesh with general relativity. Back in the 19th century, theoretical physicists couldn’t understand how electromagnetic energy and gravity could propagate through empty space. The…

io9 Ed Grabianowski Apr 2

Galaxies’ Swan Dive May Give New Clues To Dark Energy

One day, we’ll use images like this waterfall of galaxies to figure out where to refuel our ships with dark energy. That’s because this computer simulation of millions of galaxies flowing towards the red zone, the area with the highest mass, gives some clues to the location and nature of dark energy and dark matter.…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders Mar 3

Stellar wormholes could link stars with tunnels of phantom matter

Watch the world’s first dark energy detector take shape

Watch a 570MP, Dark Energy-Hunting Camera Be Built In Just Four Minutes

A Mysterious Force Is Pulling Pioneer 10 Back Toward the Sun

The first picture that really shows dark matter

Are physicists just making up dark energy?

New cosmic mapping method may be just what we need to find dark energy

You Light Up My Life. Or Do You? Bright Stars and Dark Energy

Theoretical Warp Drives Theorized To Be Black Hole-Creating Doomsday Devices

More Evidence that Dark Energy Is Ripping the Universe Apart

Earth: A Very Special Place In the Void

Heaviest, Farthest Cluster Points Toward Dark Energy

Ultracold Polar Telescope Searches for Dark Energy

Is Dark Energy the New Aether?

Galaxies’ Swan Dive May Give New Clues To Dark Energy

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