Dark energy may not doom the universe, data suggests

What happened

Scientists with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), an international research collaboration, presented new evidence Wednesday that bolstered its recent finding that dark energy is not inexorably pushing the universe apart at a constant rate of acceleration but rather ebbs and flows and appears to be weakening. If borne out, that would upend the 27-year-old standard explanation of the mysterious force that appears to dominate the universe.

Who said what

Discovering the nature of dark energy may seem an academic exercise for cosmologists, but "nothing short of the fate of the universe hangs in the balance," The Associated Press said. If the standard model of constant acceleration is correct, the universe would eventually get "ripped apart across every scale, from galaxy clusters down to atomic nuclei," The New York Times said. But if DESI is right about dark energy evolving, the "expansion could wane, eventually leaving the universe stable," or the cosmos might "reverse course, eventually doomed to a collapse that astronomers refer to as the Big Crunch."

Is the "possibility that everything comes to an end" a "good or bad thing?" said DESI member Mustapha Ishak-Boushaki at the University of Texas at Dallas. "I don't know." The DESI observations "may be cosmically consequential," The Washington Post said, but for "planning purposes," the "timescale here is many billions or trillions of years."

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What next?

DESI's original findings last year were based on mapping the movements of 6 million galaxies and quasars, and its new data ups that to nearly 15 million. The group "aims to map around 50 million galaxies and quasars by the end of its survey in 2026," the AP said, which could boost confidence in their results — or weaken it.