Dark energy tagged posts

Our universe could be twice as old as current estimates, according to a new study that challenges the dominant cosmological model and sheds new light on the so-called “impossible early galaxy problem.”

“Our newly-devised model stretches the galaxy formation time by a several billion years, making the universe 26.7 billion years old, and not 13.7 as previously estimated,” says author Rajendra Gupta, adjunct professor of physics in the Faculty of Science at the University of Ottawa.

For years, astronomers and physicists have calculated the age of our universe by measuring the time elapsed since the Big Bang and by studying the oldest stars based on the redshift of light coming from distant galaxies...

When Edwin Hubble observed distant galaxies in the 1920s, he made the groundbreaking discovery that the universe is expanding. It was not until 1998, however, that scientists observing Type Ia supernovae further discovered that the universe is not just expanding but has begun a phase of accelerating expansion. “To explain this acceleration, we need a source,” says Joseph Mohr, astrophysicist at LMU...

What happened shortly after the universe was born in the Big Bang and began to expand? Bubbles occurred and a previously unknown phase transition happened, according to particle physicists.

Think of bringing a pot of water to the boil: As the temperature reaches the boiling point, bubbles form in the water, burst and evaporate as the water boils. This continues until there is no more water changing phase from liquid to steam.

This is roughly the idea of what happened in the very early universe, right after the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.

The idea comes from particle physicists Martin S...

First three years of survey data uses observations of 226 million galaxies over 1/8 of the sky...