dark energy

In a trillion or so years’ time, the Universe will have exhausted all of its star-forming material. The last star will be born and from thereon the Universe will face a slow death as gradually each and every star burns out. Fermilab’s Dan Hooper discusses how life will struggle to survive into the deep future but dark energy is intent on stealing the stars 100–150 billion years into the future.

Neutron stars are like huge natural dark matter detectors and might hold a key to helping us understand elusive dark matter. By observing a cold neutron star, physicists from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics, might have vital information about the interactions between dark and regular matter, shedding light on the nature of this elusive substance. Dr. Sandra Robles of Fermilab is part of the collaboration on this research.

More precise understanding of dark energy achieved using AI

A research team as part of the the Dark Energy Survey collaboration used artificial intelligence to research dark energy more precisely from a map of dark and visible matter in the Universe covering the last seven billion years. The new AI technique allowed researchers to use much more information from the maps than would be possible with the previous method.

The culmination of 25 years of research by astrophysicists of the Dark Energy Survey team has concluded that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. The Dark Energy Survey observed almost two million distant galaxies using the Dark Energy Camera built and tested by Fermilab
making this the largest, deepest supernova sample ever obtained from a single telescope.

The new Dark Energy Survey year five results used machine learning to obtain a new measurement that offers insights into the density of the mysterious force driving the Universe’s expansion. The results were presented recently at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society meeting. What does this all mean? Don Lincoln explains.