Royston Posted March 27, 2010 Share Posted March 27, 2010 This was posted by my tutor on our Uni forums, thought some of you may be interested.... http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic1005.html From the article... A new study led by European scientists presents the most comprehensive analysis of data from the most ambitious survey ever undertaken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. These researchers have, for the first time ever, used Hubble data to probe the effects of the natural gravitational "weak lenses" in space and characterise the expansion of the Universe. "Dark energy affects our measurements for two reasons. First, when it is present, galaxy clusters grow more slowly, and secondly, it changes the way the Universe expands, leading to more distant — and more efficiently lensed — galaxies. Our analysis is sensitive to both effects," Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D H Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 The article does not say that "Dark energy is here to stay." The prefix "dark" essentially means "we haven't the foggiest idea what this is." All we know is that the effect apparently is real -- and that is what the article truly says. I hold out hope that we will one day have a better idea of what dark energy, and for that matter, dark matter, are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Royston Posted March 28, 2010 Author Share Posted March 28, 2010 I don't understand your argument DH, I didn't mention the use of the word 'dark', and confirmation that dark energy is a real effect (in your words) is exactly that, it's been confirmed. I thought the article was interesting because of the methods used to conclude the fact of accelerated expansion...so I thought the title was appropriate i.e the measurement of expansion is a lot more refined than it was when it was first discovered, so surely it's a genuine addition to the Einstein equations ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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