Black matter, Dark energy

The Dark Energy Survey Collaboration collected information on hundreds of millions of galaxies across the Universe using the U.S. Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera, mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at CTIO, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. Their completed analysis combines all six years of data for the first time and yields constraints on the Universe's expansion history that are twice as tight as past analyses.

Astronomers use the term dark energy to refer to energy in the universe that is unaccounted for by ordinary matter but necessary to explain cosmology. Astronomy, however, isn't the only field with missing energy. Rice University professor Peter Wolynes and postdoctoral researcher Carlos Bueno, along with Universidad de Buenos Aires collaborators Ezequiel Gaplern, Ignacio Sánchez and Diego Ferreiro, recently published a paper describing the "dark energy" found in the structural protein universe. This missing energy comes from the tension between the form of a protein and its function.

Dark energy is still one of the greatest cosmic mysteries. For all the time, money and telescopes that humanity has used to uncover its nature, scientists are still asking a fundamental question: What is dark energy?

The latest results combined weak lensing and galaxy clustering and incorporated four dark energy probes from a single experiment for the first time.

The Dark Energy Survey Collaboration collected information on hundreds of millions of galaxies across the universe using the U.S. Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera, mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at CTIO, a program of NSF NOIRLab. Their completed analysis combines all six years of data for the first time and yields constraints on the universe's expansion history that are twice as tight as past analyses.

In an unprecedented step, researchers crafted a detailed model compatible with the universe’s accelerated expansion. The post String Theory Can Now Describe a Universe That Has Dark Energy first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The accelerating expansion of the universe is usually explained by an invisible force known as dark energy. But a new study suggests this mysterious ingredient may not be necessary after all. Using an extended version of Einstein’s gravity, researchers found that cosmic acceleration can arise naturally from a more general geometry of spacetime. The result hints at a radical new way to understand why the universe keeps speeding up.

A mysterious force called Dark Energy might be changing, in a way that challenges our current understanding of the nature of time and space.

Astronomers are a step closer to cracking one of the secrets of dark energy—the mysterious force believed to be causing the universe's accelerated expansion.

In the leading model of cosmology, most of the universe is invisible: a combined 95% is made of dark matter and dark energy. Exactly what these dark components are remains a mystery, but they have a tremendous impact on our universe, with dark matter exerting a gravitational pull and dark energy driving the universe's accelerating expansion.

Author(s): R. C. H. Gomes et al. (DES Collaboration)The authors demonstrate that combining the third-order aperture mass statistic with the two point correlation function on Dark Energy Survey Year 3 cosmic shear data leads to a 111% (22%) improved figure-of-merit on the joint Ωₘ-S₈ (S₈-w₀) constraint. They further show that the tension to Planck data is thus at the 2.3σ level. [Phys. Rev. D 112, 123515] Published Thu Dec 04, 2025

A cosmological simulation study by researchers from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has systematically revealed, for the first time, how the interaction between dark matter and dark energy significantly influences the rotation and shape alignment of dark matter halos in the universe.

To be fair, all scientific models are in some sense wrong

Let's rewind the clock back…oh, I don't know, let's say a hundred years. It was 1917, and Einstein had just developed his general theory of relativity. It was a masterpiece, giving us our modern-day view of the gravitational force. And like anybody curious about gravity, Einstein decided to apply his new equations to the evolution of the universe.

Let’s rewind the clock back…oh, I don’t know, let’s say a hundred years.

New supercomputer simulations hint that dark energy might be dynamic, not constant, subtly reshaping the Universe’s structure. The findings align with recent DESI observations, offering the strongest evidence yet for an evolving cosmic force.

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"If these results are confirmed, it would mark a major paradigm shift in cosmology since the discovery of dark energy 27 years ago."

The universe's expansion may actually have started to slow rather than accelerating at an ever-increasing rate as previously thought, a new study suggests.

The term dark energy, first used in 1998, is a proposed form of energy that affects the universe on the largest scales. Its primary effect is to drive the accelerating expansion of the universe – an observation that was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. Dark energy is now a well established concept and […] The post Further evidence for evolving dark energy? appeared first on Physics World.

An academic dives into using quantum physics to explore dark matter.

The universe may not only be geometry and energy—but also memory. And in that memory, every moment of cosmic history may still be written. The post Information Could Be a Fundamental Part of the Universe—and May Explain Dark Energy and Dark Matter appeared first on SingularityHub.

Author(s): K. Lodha et al. (DESI Collaboration)The new map of the Universe’s expansion history released by the DESI Collaboration offers hints at a breakdown of the standard model of cosmology. [Phys. Rev. D 112, 083511] Published Mon Oct 06, 2025

A controversial prediction about black holes and the expansion force of the universe could explain a cosmology mystery

Since the early 20th century, scientists have gathered compelling evidence that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. This acceleration is attributed to what is known as dark energy—a fundamental property of spacetime that has a repulsive effect on galaxies.

The universe is approaching the midpoint of its 33-billion-year lifespan, a Cornell physicist calculates with new data from dark-energy observatories. After expanding to its peak size about 11 billion years from now, it will begin to contract—snapping back like a rubber band to a single point at the end.

For decades, astronomers have believed that dark matter and dark energy make up most of the universe. However, a new study suggests they might not exist at all. Instead, what we perceive as dark matter and dark energy could simply be the effect of the natural forces of the universe slowly weakening as it ages.

For more than a century, physics has been built on two great theories. Einstein's general relativity explains gravity as the bending of space and time.

A new study, based on years of precise data from telescopes such as the Dark Energy Survey in Chile, above, suggests that the mysterious force known as dark energy may be evolving over time rather than constant.

Cosmologically coupled black hole hypothesis also confirms that dark energy is evolving The post Unconventional approach to dark energy problem gives observed neutrino masses appeared first on Physics World.

Science is a story of coming up with theories then doing our best to disprove them. That is especially true for theories on a grand, cosmological scale, though disproving them can be particularly hard.

Science is a story of coming up with theories then doing our best to disprove them. That is especially true for theories on a grand, cosmological scale, though disproving them can be particularly hard. One of the most famous examples of a hard to disprove theory is that of dark energy and dark matter. In large parts of space we see unequivocal evidence that something is messing with general relativity. But down at the scale of our own solar system, there’s no evidence of it whatsoever, at least as far as we can see. A new paper from Slava Turyshev, a physicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, discusses a way scientists might be able to deal with this discrepancy - by being very, very selective with the way we test for evidence of dark matter and energy in our solar system.

Dark energy—the term used to describe whatever is causing the universe to expand at an increasing rate—is one of the universe's greatest mysteries. The most widely accepted theory currently suggests that dark energy is constant, and the energy of empty space drives cosmic acceleration.

These are exciting times to explore the largest unanswered questions in physics thanks to high-tech experiments and very

Our understanding of cosmology hinges on how well we know our own local universe, which remains poorly mapped and poorly understood

If black holes are actually droplets of dark energy that convert stellar matter into this mysterious and dominant force, many "cosmic hiccups" could soon be cured.

This week, researchers pinned down the age of a complete Homo-genus skull found in Greece in 1960 to at least 286,000 years old. Medical researchers reported that the majority of chronic pain patients discontinue cannabis use within one year. And engineers prototyped solar trees, a new solar technology designed with natural tree morphology that can be incorporated into natural branches in the upper canopies of trees while allowing light to penetrate to underlying vegetation.

A new interpretation of dark energy data suggests that the mysterious force, which accelerated the early universe's expansion, emerged naturally from black holes.

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Nature is the foremost international weekly scientific journal in the world and is the flagship journal for Nature Portfolio. It publishes the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature publishes landmark papers, award winning news, leading comment and expert opinion on important, topical scientific news and events that enable readers to share the latest discoveries in science and evolve the discussion amongst the global scientific community.

Author(s): S. P. Ahlen et al. (DESI Collaboration)An alternative to the standard cosmological model where matter is converted to dark energy during stellar collapse results in an accurate cosmological expansion history and a summed neutrino mass posterior distribution peaked at positive mass. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 081003] Published Thu Aug 21, 2025

Researchers at Durham and collaborators in the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) mission have proposed a bold new theory that black holes could be converting matter into dark energy.

Scientists have created the largest catalogue of exploding stars ever assembled, and it's telling us something surprising about the mysterious force driving our universe apart. After analyzing over 2,000 stellar explosions spanning billions of years, researchers have found hints that dark energy, the force making up 70% of our universe, may not be the constant we once thought. Instead, it appears to be changing over time, potentially even weakening!

It took about 50 exploding stars to upend cosmology. Researchers mapped and measured light from Type Ia supernovae, the dramatic explosion of a particular kind of white dwarf. In 1998, they announced their surprising results: Instead of slowing down or staying constant, our universe was expanding faster and faster. The discovery of "dark energy," the unknown ingredient driving the accelerated expansion, was awarded a Nobel Prize.

Author(s): Maria Berti, Emilio Bellini, Camille Bonvin, Martin Kunz, Matteo Viel, and Miguel ZumalacarreguiThe authors perform a model-independent, non-parametric reconstruction of dark energy density using DESI BAO, CMB, and SNe data. Their method employs a piecewise polynomial interpolation without assuming a functional form of dark energy density. This analysis shows mild but consistent deviations from ΛCDM and evidence for phantom crossing. The framework is robust, flexible and can be readily used for next-generation precision cosmological surveys. [Phys. Rev. D 112, 023518] Published Tue Jul 08, 2025

New evidence suggests the universe might not behave as expected, raising questions about the costs of being wrong. The post Shifting Forces: The Evolving Debate Around Dark Energy appeared first on SingularityHub.

For generations, humans have gazed at the stars and wondered about the ultimate fate of the universe. Will it expand forever into the cold emptiness, or meet a more dramatic end?

Astronomers once wondered if the Universe might one day collapse in on itself in a Big Crunch, but the discovery of dark energy suggested that the expansion of the Universe would accelerate, removing that possibility. New data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument suggests that dark energy might be changing in strength over time, maybe even going negative. If that result holds, are we due for a Big Crunch? And how long would it take?

The birth, growth and future of our universe are eternally fascinating.

The universe seems to be spinning, and that could explain what dark energy is and why it's weakening while revealing our place within the multiverse.

Part of the closest star-forming region to us, known as the Chamaeleon Complex, has been illuminated by the light of young stars in this artwork by nature captured by the Dark Energy Camera.

A major space science cooperation project between China and Brazil is entering its last pre-commission stages, with the departure of what will be an Olympic pool-sized telescope from the northern Chinese port of Tianjin on Monday. The main structure of the radio telescope is expected to arrive in the hilly hinterland of Paraíba state on the Brazilian east coast in about two months and will be one of the largest of its kind in Latin America when completed in 2026. The remote location – nearly...

The origin of our sun, and all the planets, comets and asteroids that orbit it, can be traced back to their birthplace inside a massive cloud of cold gas and dust, not unlike the billowing molecular cloud featured in this image. Found within these cool regions of highly condensed interstellar material are stellar nurseries where young stars are emerging from the swirling gaseous plumes. These regions are also home to nebulae that shine bright with the reflected light of newly formed stars.

String theory has long been touted as physicists' best candidate for describing the fundamental nature of the universe, with elementary particles and forces described as vibrations of tiny threads of energy. But in the early 21st century, it was realized that most of the versions of reality described by string theory's equations cannot match up with observations of our own universe.

Results from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) suggest that dark energy, a mysterious force in the universe, is changing over time. This would completely re-write our understanding of the cosmos - but now other physicists are challenging this view

For a while now, there has been a problematic mystery at the heart of the standard cosmological model. Although all observations support the expanding universe model, observations of the early period of the cosmos give a lower rate of acceleration than more local observations.

For a while now, there has been a problematic mystery at the heart of the standard cosmological model. Although all observations support the expanding Universe model, observations of the early period of the cosmos give a lower rate of acceleration than more local observations. We call it the Hubble tension problem, and we have no idea how to solve it. Naturally, there have been several proposed ideas: what if general relativity is wrong; what if dark matter doesn't exist; what if the rate of time isn't uniform; heck, what if the entire Universe rotates. So, let's add a new idea to the pile: what if dark matter evolves?

The discovery of the cosmic acceleration problem truly inspired me as a teenage physics nerd. Recent, related revelations about dark energy will hopefully capture the interest of today’s young science geeks, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

‘Shocking’ results from a major astronomical study have raised doubts about the standard model of cosmology, forcing scientists to consider new ways of understanding dark energy and gravity

If dark energy is weakening, as suggested by recent results, then the cosmos is far stranger than most physicists had supposed

A new cosmic model suggests that singularities could briefly pop into existence, spewing matter and energy into the cosmos, negating the need for dark energy and dark matter.

A vast galactic survey suggests dark energy may not be constant after all. The post Dark Energy Discovery Could Undermine Our Entire Model of Cosmological History appeared first on SingularityHub.

Dr. Richard Lieu, a physics professor at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, has published a paper in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity that proposes a universe built on steps of multiple singularities rather than the Big Bang alone to account for the expansion of the cosmos.

Physicists have proposed a new model of space-time that may provide the 'first observational evidence supporting string theory,' a new preprint suggests.

The great Russian physicist and Nobel laureate Lev Landau once remarked that "cosmologists are often in error, but never in doubt." In studying the history of the universe itself, there is always a chance that we have got it all wrong, but we never let this stand in the way of our inquiries.

Dark energy may have a completely unknown aspect of physics acting as an accomplice in its efforts to defy gravity, suppressing the growth of large-scale structures like galaxy superclusters.

Dark energy is a mystery so daunting that it stretches and strains our most robust theories. The universe is expanding, driven by the unknown force that we've named Dark Energy. Dark Energy is also accelerating the rate of expansion. If scientists could figure out why, it would open up a whole new avenue of understanding.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument used millions of galaxies and quasars to build the largest 3D map of our universe to date. Combining their data with other experiments shows signs that the impact of dark energy may be weakening over time -- and the standard model of how the universe works may need an update.

It’s looking more and more as if dark energy, the mysterious factor that scientists say is behind the accelerating expansion of the universe, isn’t as constant as they once thought. The latest findings from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, or DESI, don’t quite yet come up to the level of a confirmed discovery, but they’re leading scientists to rethink their views on the evolution of the universe — and how it might end.

Dark Energy is a mystery so daunting that it stretches and strains our most robust theories. The Universe is expanding, driven by the unknown force that we've named Dark Energy. Dark Energy is also accelerating the rate of expansion. If scientists could figure out why, it would open up a whole new avenue of understanding.

The fate of the universe hinges on the balance between matter and dark energy: the fundamental ingredient that drives its accelerating expansion. New results from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration use the largest 3D map of our universe ever made to track dark energy's influence over the past 11 billion years. Researchers see hints that dark energy, widely thought to be a "cosmological constant," might be evolving over time in unexpected ways.

A ground-breaking new finding about dark energy suggests that it is changing over time.

New data suggests the unknown, unobservable force responsible for the universe's expansion may be weakening.

This week both the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration have released massive datasets which are immediately challenging cosmologists’ best theories of the universe. The new studies are available in preprint papers and are being presented at American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit in California. “What we are seeing is […]

The 3D cosmic map building DESI has provided more clues that dark energy is weakening over time, suggesting our best model of cosmic evolution could be wrong.

The universe has been expanding ever since the Big Bang almost 14 billion years ago, and astronomers believe a kind of invisible force called dark energy is making it accelerate faster.

Scientists are homing in on the nature of a mysterious force called dark energy, and nothing short of the fate of the universe hangs in the balance.

Dark energy, the mysterious force thought to be driving the ever-faster expansion of the universe, appears to be changing over time, according to new observations released Wednesday.

Dark energy makes up roughly 70% of the universe, yet we know nothing about it.

Our current best theories of the universe suggest that dark energy is making it expand faster and faster, but new observations from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument suggest this mysterious force is actually growing weaker

A new map of cosmic expansion suggests that dark energy evolves over time, hinting that the universe doesn’t work the way we thought it did

Latest DESI results fall short of discovery threshold but strengthen evidence for dynamical dark energy.

New data further challenge the best scientific theory of the history and the structure of the universe. But a separate recent result reinforces it.

Findings from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) suggest that dark energy could be evolving over time. If they're right, cosmology will need a new model.

New data further challenge the best scientific theory of the history and the structure of the universe. But a separate recent result reinforces it.

New research could force a fundamental rethink of the nature of space and time.

An extraordinary new 3D map of the universe has been made available to the public. A team using the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and a supercomputer to try to better understand the mysterious phenomenon known as dark energy, created the largest 3D map of the universe as part of this endeavour. And it has […]

The DESI experiment shocked cosmologists with a hint that dark energy varies over time. Now, with more data, the conclusions hold up.

Last year, an enormous map of the cosmos hinted that the engine driving cosmic expansion might be sputtering. Now physicists are back with an even bigger map, and a stronger conclusion. The post Is Dark Energy Getting Weaker? New Evidence Strengthens the Case. first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A new study using the Dark Energy Survey (DES) final datasets suggests potential inconsistencies in the standard cosmological model, known as ΛCDM. If confirmed, these findings could fundamentally alter our understanding of the universe.

The Euclid space telescope has dropped its first data and deep field observations showing millions of galaxies in great detail as it hunts for dark matter and dark energy clues.

Gravitational lensing often evokes images of a cosmic funhouse mirror: duplicated galaxies, dramatic arcs and distorted shapes. But the web-like, large-scale structure throughout the universe also bends light in a weaker, less obvious way. This phenomenon, known as cosmic shear, can provide clues about the role of dark energy in shaping the universe.

The universe is ballooning outward at an ever-faster clip under the power of an unknown force dubbed dark energy. One of the major goals for NASA's upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is to help astronomers gather clues to the mystery. One team is setting the stage now to help astronomers prepare for this exciting science.

Rolf Landauer showed that "information is physical" with every bit equivalent to a small amount of energy proportional to temperature. The Landauer equivalent energy of information carried, or represented by matter, effectively provides an information dark energy (IDE). Many objects in the universe, ranging in size from stars to galaxy clusters, have temperatures that vary in relation to the square root of the object mass.

Author(s): M. Gatti et al. (Dark Energy Survey)The paper applies a novel simulation-based cosmological inference methodology to Dark Energy Survey Year-3-based weak-lensing mass maps. Inclusion of nongaussian statistics strongly improves cosmological constraints, establishing consistency with other work with the same and different datasets. [Phys. Rev. D 111, 063504] Published Mon Mar 03, 2025

Astronomers have studied 3,600 supernovas to discover diversity in exploding white dwarf stars, a vital tool in the investigation of dark energy.

Using a revolutionary dark energy camera, astronomers have discovered the largest haul of "missing link" intermediate-mass black holes ever seen, but there should have been more.

Where are all the medium-sized black holes? New data has located the largest collection yet.