* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Sunday, August 3, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra takes the Lollapalooza stage – Yahoo Home

    Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra takes the Lollapalooza stage – Yahoo Home

    Sens. Blackburn, Warnock introduce CREATE Act to provide tax relief to music creators – Yahoo Home

    Sens. Blackburn and Warnock Launch CREATE Act to Deliver Tax Relief for Music Creators

    That’s (Political) Entertainment: When Theatre Meets Politics

    Future Script: How Generative AI Is Changing Collective Bargaining in the Entertainment Industry – Jackson Lewis

    Future Script: How Generative AI Is Transforming Collective Bargaining in Entertainment

    The SBA’s live-entertainment bailout was supposed to end two years ago. We still don’t know how $1.5 billion was spent. – Yahoo Home

    $1.5 Billion Live-Entertainment Bailout: Two Years Later, Where Did the Money Go?

    Wall Street Bets: Caesars, Golden Entertainment, Churchill Downs, GLPI, Boyd – CDC Gaming

    Top Wall Street Bets: Caesars, Golden Entertainment, Churchill Downs, GLPI, and Boyd Take Center Stage

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Livonia police use grappler technology to stop drunk driver – ClickOnDetroit | WDIV Local 4

    Livonia Police Deploy Grappler Technology to Safely Stop Drunk Driver

    Emory orthopaedic surgeons use robotic technology to transform knee replacement surgery – Emory News Center

    How Robotic Technology is Revolutionizing Knee Replacement Surgery

    Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp (CTSH) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong Revenue … – Yahoo.co

    Cognizant Q2 2025 Earnings: Impressive Revenue Growth and Key Takeaways

    Revving Up The U.S. Technology Engine – Forbes

    Revving Up The U.S. Technology Engine – Forbes

    More than just a hockey player – Rochester Institute of Technology Athletics

    Beyond the Ice: The Inspiring Journey of a Remarkable Athlete from Rochester Institute of Technology

    Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

    Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra takes the Lollapalooza stage – Yahoo Home

    Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra takes the Lollapalooza stage – Yahoo Home

    Sens. Blackburn, Warnock introduce CREATE Act to provide tax relief to music creators – Yahoo Home

    Sens. Blackburn and Warnock Launch CREATE Act to Deliver Tax Relief for Music Creators

    That’s (Political) Entertainment: When Theatre Meets Politics

    Future Script: How Generative AI Is Changing Collective Bargaining in the Entertainment Industry – Jackson Lewis

    Future Script: How Generative AI Is Transforming Collective Bargaining in Entertainment

    The SBA’s live-entertainment bailout was supposed to end two years ago. We still don’t know how $1.5 billion was spent. – Yahoo Home

    $1.5 Billion Live-Entertainment Bailout: Two Years Later, Where Did the Money Go?

    Wall Street Bets: Caesars, Golden Entertainment, Churchill Downs, GLPI, Boyd – CDC Gaming

    Top Wall Street Bets: Caesars, Golden Entertainment, Churchill Downs, GLPI, and Boyd Take Center Stage

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Livonia police use grappler technology to stop drunk driver – ClickOnDetroit | WDIV Local 4

    Livonia Police Deploy Grappler Technology to Safely Stop Drunk Driver

    Emory orthopaedic surgeons use robotic technology to transform knee replacement surgery – Emory News Center

    How Robotic Technology is Revolutionizing Knee Replacement Surgery

    Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp (CTSH) Q2 2025 Earnings Call Highlights: Strong Revenue … – Yahoo.co

    Cognizant Q2 2025 Earnings: Impressive Revenue Growth and Key Takeaways

    Revving Up The U.S. Technology Engine – Forbes

    Revving Up The U.S. Technology Engine – Forbes

    More than just a hockey player – Rochester Institute of Technology Athletics

    Beyond the Ice: The Inspiring Journey of a Remarkable Athlete from Rochester Institute of Technology

    Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

    Smart Logistics in Warehousing – From Legacy Protocols to Green IoT – How Technology Is Reshaping the Sustainable Supply Chain – Logistics Viewpoints –

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

We have never seen dark matter and dark energy. Why do we think they exist?

July 1, 2023
in Science
We have never seen dark matter and dark energy. Why do we think they exist?
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Home

News

Science & Astronomy

The Euclid telescope will trace the signatures of dark energy in the distribution of galaxies across the universe,

Astronomers hope to find signatures of dark energy in the distribution of galaxies in cosmos mapped by the Euclid mission.
(Image credit: ESA)

Scientists think that only about 5% of the stuff that makes up the universe is known to us. 

Yes, you are reading that right. Cosmological models show that invisible energy and matter must make up a combined 95% of the universe for it to work according to existing theories. 

The invisible part of the universe consists of two components, dark energy and dark matter. The latter is somewhat less mysterious and scientists are fairly certain of its existence: The rules of gravity simply wouldn’t work without it. Galaxies as we see them wouldn’t have been able to assemble to their current sizes in the time they’ve had since the Big Bang if visible matter was all there was. In fact, many galaxies wouldn’t even hold together as they do, if the gravity of visible matter was the only force pulling them together. 

Europe’s new space telescope Euclid will attempt to map this invisible stuff, but what if its findings don’t fit expectations? A lot is at stake, including Einstein’s famed and widely accepted theory of general relativity. 

Related: How will Europe’s Euclid space telescope see into the dark universe?

The first observations indicating that dark matter must be prevalent in the universe to prevent things from flying apart were made in the 1930s. Since then, astronomers have found that this invisible dark matter must make up at least 85% of all matter in the universe. Scientists have been trying for decades to detect this invisible matter, which, they think, must consist of some sort of particles, maybe akin to the inert neutrinos that barely interact with the visible world. 

The situation with dark energy is, however, more complicated. The discovery of this elusive force dates back to 1998 when astronomers found that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. The expansion itself was initially driven by the energy from the Big Bang, but since the Big Bang happened so long ago (13.8 billion years ago, to be exact), this expansion should be slowing down. 

To make up for this conundrum, theorists postulated that some mysterious force, dark energy, must exist that acts against gravity and drives matter apart. Cosmological models show that dark energy accounts for 68% of all energy in the cosmos, according to NASA. But astronomers admit that the evidence for its existence is a bit vague. 

“[The acceleration of the expansion] of the universe doesn’t make sense when you think that there’s just gravity there,” Isobel Hook, a professor of astrophysics at Lancaster University in the U.K. and a Euclid scientist, told Space.com. “It shouldn’t be slowing down. So the fact that we observe it getting faster means that there must be something else. And we just call that thing dark energy because we don’t really know at all what it is.”

Hook was a member of the team that made that 1998 discovery and since then has been wondering, just like many other scientists, what this dark energy actually might be.

“We really don’t know,” she said. “The best theory is that it’s probably some kind of property of space itself, like a kind of energy that’s everywhere, at all times, but there’s no explanation for what that should be.”

Models show that this energy must be distributed evenly across the universe and that it has always had the same strength. In the universe’s early days, the effects of dark energy were not as visible, because the original ‘kick’ from the Big Bang was driving most of the universe’s expansion. Some 5 to 6 billion years ago, however, dark energy became “a predominant force, acting against the gravity of both, the normal and dark matter,” Giuseppe Racca, Euclid project manager at the European Space Agency (ESA), told Space.com

“It’s a little bit unsettling, that this energy appears to have a constant density as the universe expands,” Racca said. “It means that [additional] energy is created because the density is constant. It is not diluted by the universe becoming bigger. So it means that there is additional energy.”

There is, however, also the possibility that there is no such thing as dark energy after all, and that the cosmological models that require its existence are wrong. These models are based on Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity that describes the physical ‘rules’ of the universe in a series of equations. If future observations by the Euclid telescope (and other upcoming telescopes designed to study dark energy) suggest that dark energy is not such a constant, omnipresent force, that would mean that this famed theory is not entirely correct. 

“We know that general relativity works very well at the level of a system,” said Racca. “But there is a possibility that it doesn’t work all that well at cosmic scales and therefore dark energy is not needed.”

Euclid will look for the evidence of dark energy by mapping the distribution of galaxies 10 billion years back in time and comparing how this distribution has changed throughout the evolution of the universe. The observations will reveal whether there really appears to be a constant omnipresent force in action or whether perhaps something else is going on. 

“We might find that we don’t see [the effects of] this energy constant everywhere, but we see some differences somewhere or in time,” said Hook. “Then things will get really interesting and it really would be revolutionary, because we’d have to completely change our theories.”

And that would likely mean Nobel Prizes for the discoverers. The Euclid telescope, launched on July 1 by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, will take six years to map one third of the sky outside our galaxy, the Milky Way. Only then will astronomers have enough data to know for sure.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

Tereza is a London-based science and technology journalist, aspiring fiction writer and amateur gymnast. Originally from Prague, the Czech Republic, she spent the first seven years of her career working as a reporter, script-writer and presenter for various TV programmes of the Czech Public Service Television. She later took a career break to pursue further education and added a Master’s in Science from the International Space University, France, to her Bachelor’s in Journalism and Master’s in Cultural Anthropology from Prague’s Charles University. She worked as a reporter at the Engineering and Technology magazine, freelanced for a range of publications including Live Science, Space.com, Professional Engineering, Via Satellite and Space News and served as a maternity cover science editor at the European Space Agency.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Space.com – https://www.space.com/what-if-dark-energy-does-not-exist

Tags: energyMatterscience
Previous Post

Mars helicopter Ingenuity phones home, breaking 63-day silence

Next Post

Who is the Euclid ‘dark universe’ space telescope named after?

Endemism shapes viral ecology and evolution in globally distributed hydrothermal vent ecosystems – Nature

Endemism shapes viral ecology and evolution in globally distributed hydrothermal vent ecosystems – Nature

August 2, 2025
Scientists Finally Reveal the Hidden Trigger Behind Lightning Strikes

Scientists Finally Reveal the Hidden Trigger Behind Lightning Strikes

August 2, 2025
Young minds explore science at NDSU summer research program – InForum

Young Minds Ignite Curiosity at NDSU Summer Science Research Program

August 2, 2025
PlayStation Preparing to Release More Games on Xbox – Report – PlayStation LifeStyle

PlayStation Gears Up to Launch Exciting New Games on Xbox

August 2, 2025
Lexington County hits a home run hosting the Diamond Youth Baseball World Series – WLTX

Lexington County Hits a Home Run Hosting the Diamond Youth Baseball World Series

August 2, 2025
Some rural Texans see THC as a lifeline for their health and economy – The Texas Tribune

How THC Is Revolutionizing Health and Sparking Economic Growth in Rural Texas

August 2, 2025
Fox Corporation Acquires One-Third Interest in Penske Entertainment – INDYCAR.com

Fox Corporation Makes Bold Move with Major Investment in Penske Entertainment, Powering INDYCAR’s Future

August 2, 2025
Minnesotans face health impacts as wildfire smoke lingers – kare11.com

Minnesotans face health impacts as wildfire smoke lingers – kare11.com

August 2, 2025
Trump announces sweeping new levies for scores of countries – as it happened – The Guardian

Trump announces sweeping new levies for scores of countries – as it happened – The Guardian

August 2, 2025
Livonia police use grappler technology to stop drunk driver – ClickOnDetroit | WDIV Local 4

Livonia Police Deploy Grappler Technology to Safely Stop Drunk Driver

August 2, 2025

Categories

Archives

August 2025
MTWTFSS
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
« Jul    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (751)
  • Economy (776)
  • Entertainment (21,653)
  • General (16,252)
  • Health (9,813)
  • Lifestyle (784)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (776)
  • Politics (785)
  • Science (15,989)
  • Sports (21,271)
  • Technology (15,753)
  • World (758)

Recent News

Endemism shapes viral ecology and evolution in globally distributed hydrothermal vent ecosystems – Nature

Endemism shapes viral ecology and evolution in globally distributed hydrothermal vent ecosystems – Nature

August 2, 2025
Scientists Finally Reveal the Hidden Trigger Behind Lightning Strikes

Scientists Finally Reveal the Hidden Trigger Behind Lightning Strikes

August 2, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version