• Question: What is dark enrergy

    Asked by Jahi on 20 Dec 2024.
    • Photo: Caroline Roche

      Caroline Roche answered on 20 Dec 2024:

      Dark energy is the energy that’s making the universe expand. We don’t know what it is, just that it exists. Scientists are currently researching whether it is a cosmological constant or a changing value.

    • Photo: Tina-Jaine Haigh

      Tina-Jaine Haigh answered on 24 Jan 2025:

      Dark energy is a name for a type of energy we don’t understand very well. It’s called dark just because we are in the dark about it.
      What we do know is that the universe is expanding, and has been ever since the big bang. That bit is clear enough. But using all the laws we know of so far, the rate of expansion should be slowing down over time because gravity should be attracting everything (all the galaxies and stars and planets) back towards each other. But it isn’t slowing down. In fact the rate of expansion is getting faster. We don’t have a good explanation for this, apart from there is some source of energy continuing to push everything further apart despite gravity.
      For now, it’s called dark energy. Personally I think it should be called dark force, because forces push things. But I suspect Star Wars own the rights to that name. Perhaps one day you can discover a better explanation for it.

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