A team of researchers from the University of Canterbury has made a shocking claim that dark energy may not exist, potentially solving one of the universe’s biggest mysteries. According to the study, the universe is expanding in a “lumpier” way than previously thought, rather than uniformly in all directions.
The concept of dark energy was introduced to explain the accelerating expansion of the universe, but it has never been directly observed and remains an unproven theory. However, the new research suggests that the unusual effects of light stretching can be attributed to our understanding of time and distance, not the expansion of the universe itself.
Gravity affects time differently depending on its strength, with clocks in regions of low gravity ticking faster than those in areas of high gravity. This means that a clock in an empty region would tick around 35% slower than one in a densely populated galaxy. The team’s findings show that this effect can explain the observed accelerating expansion of the universe without the need for dark energy.
The research, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters, provides compelling evidence that may resolve some of the key questions surrounding the quirks of our expanding cosmos. According to lead researcher David Wiltshire, the study’s findings “show that we do not need dark energy to explain why the Universe appears to expand at an accelerating rate.”
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/space/dark-energy-exist-universe-cosmos-expansion-b2672598.html