An unproven yet defensible existence, dark energy is what answers many of the unsolved cosmic mysteries. While today, it is just a theory, scientists are baffled by the possibilities it brings forth. Not only it is accelerating the expansion of universe, it is also questioning the credibility of universal laws of gravity!
If you don’t believe in the existence of dark energy, you should question the authenticity of gravity!
What happens when you throw a ball up in the air? It slows down and stops in the mid air, just to return back to the ground. Evidently, gravity works here. This same gravity penetrates the entire universe which made scientists think that the expansion of universe was slowing down and it will abruptly come to a halt. However, researches were mind boggling.
Not only the expansion of universe was not slowing down, surprisingly it was expanding at a faster rate! Scientists were puzzled because it is as unlikely as throwing a ball up in the air and never expecting it to come back.
Such an anti-gravity nature signals only two possibilities:
– Either Einstein’s theory of gravity is faulty
– Or the dark energy is demonstrating its existence
Dark energy is the name given to an unexplained force that is drawing galaxies away from each other, against the pull of gravity, at an accelerated pace.
While all the galaxies are flying apart from each other, this mysterious energy is what confounding scientists with its weird properties. It has a negative pressure, unlike ordinary matter, that explains the repulsive nature.
| One of the simplest forms of dark energy is vacuum energy which is strangely fascinating. Just imagine a box that expands as the universe expands. Even as the matter inside the box remains same while expansion, box’s volume increases which implies that the density of the matter goes down. In fact, as the universe expands, the density of everything goes down. However, the density of Vacuum energy remains exactly same. |
It’s a cosmic mystery and scientists are bewildered. The incomprehensible Dark energy which makes up 68% of the universe interacts with ordinary matter only through the action of gravity making it impossible to test in the laboratory. Well, the universe is dominated by dark energy and for scientists it has become a cosmic priority to shed light on one of the most unsolvable bizarre mask- the dark energy.
