Dark Energy

By Logan Wright

The majority of physicists once believed that the universe’s expansion was slowing down. In 1998, they were proven completely wrong. Though it flies in the face of scientific theory, the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate.

One possible explanation is that empty space has a thing called dark energy, which supposedly makes up about three quarters of the universe. Dark energy is supposedly very sparsely distributed and exists in such a way that it interacts with other objects only through gravity. It has a strong negative pressure, which causes it to pull on its surroundings and as a result, pull apart the universe. This neatly explains the universe’s expansion without completely changing our understanding of the universe. No one has been able to find any dark energy yet, so scientists can merely claim that dark energy “should” exist.