dark energy

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument used millions of galaxies and quasars to build the largest 3D map of our universe to date. Combining the DESI 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.

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.

NPR’s Short Wave host spoke with Fermilab Cosmologist Brian Nord about what dark energy could be and what it implies about the end of our universe.

Here’s what recent DESI measurements suggest — and why it’s too early to update conventional predictions about the Universe’s distant 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.

Researchers have used the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument to make the largest 3D map of our universe and world-leading measurements of dark energy, the mysterious cause of its accelerating expansion.

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 Dark Energy Survey has measured the BAO scale when the universe was half its present age with an accuracy of 2%, the most accurate determination yet at such an early epoch. It is the first time an imaging-only measurement is competitive with large spectroscopy campaigns specifically designed to detect this signal.

The most recent results from Dark Energy Survey of over 1,500 supernovas taken by the by the DECam calls the standard model of cosmology into question.

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.