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  • NEWS FEATURE

Dark energy is tearing the Universe apart. What if the force is weakening?

The first set of results from a pioneering cosmic-mapping project hints that the repulsive force known as dark energy has changed over 11 billion years, which would alter ideas about how the Universe has evolved and what its future will be.
  1. Davide Castelvecchi
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A view of the Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) at Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona is collecting data to reconstruct how the Universe has expanded over billions of years. Credit: Marilyn Sargent/Berkeley Lab

The fate of the Universe might not be as dark and empty as cosmologists have long suspected. That’s one potential implication emerging from an innovative project that has produced some of the biggest maps ever made of the Universe.

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Nature 629, 274-275 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01273-4

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