The enigmatic idea of dark energy has consistently been referenced to explain the universe’s expansion, but new research may upend years of cosmological beliefs with a shocking claim made by scientists: dark energy doesn’t actually exist.
This revelation backpedals on a theory that astrophysicists have commonly followed in the hunt for answers to one of the universe’s most mystifying questions: how its perpetual expansion is possible. The endeavor to understand this concept may need to change direction entirely, according to a study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
In the study, a team of researchers from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand asserts that the standard cosmological model used to interpret the framework of the universe should be dropped to make way for a more viable model that discredits dark energy and describes the universe as having a "lumpy" structure.
