Is there more than one dark energy?

[Judi Lynn]

By Paul Sutter 13 hours ago

Maybe we shouldn't put all of our dark-energy eggs in one basket.



This graphic shows a map of the universe's expansion rates in different directions, estimated in a recent study by Konstantinos Migkas and collaborators.
(Image: © University of Bonn/K. Migkas et al.)

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of How to Die in Space. He contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Opinions and Insights.

We don't know what's behind dark energy, the name we give to the current era of accelerated expansion in the universe. Many theorists favor some sort of quantum field as the driver of dark energy, but these ideas are hard to reconcile with insights from string theory.

But new research proposes a radical solution: What if there is more than one cosmological agent for dark energy? This mixture would have strange effects in our universe, making it potentially detectable with upcoming surveys.

Into the darkness we go

Not only do we live in an expanding universe — we learned that about 100 years ago, with Edwin Hubble's observations of galaxies receding away from us — but we live in a universe whose expansion is accelerating. For about the past 5 billion years, the expansion rate of our cosmos has been increasing, ramping up the growth of the universe with every passing day.

To put it mildly, we have no idea what's causing this accelerated expansion. We first noticed it about 20 years ago when studying distant supernovae, and since then a plethora of independent observations (including, but not limited to: the cosmic microwave background, baryon acoustic oscillations, cosmic voids and more) have all confirmed that accelerated expansion is the real deal.

More:
https://www.space.com/multiple-dark-energies-universe-string-theory

[True Dough]

1. Yes, I believe there is

I get most of my dark energy from these:

[Enoki33]

2. A friend of mine who is bit of a sci-fi fan once speculated about

the nearly infinite possibilities of a propulsion system made from dark matter.

[Duppers]

4. Dark Energy & Dark Matter

Are two different things.
Of the 2, Dark Energy is far more mysterious and has almost completely eluded our understanding. Physicists developed the highly complex string theory in an attempt to understand it but without much success. However, that is about to change with a soon to be published paper.

[Enoki33]

5. Much appreciated.

[Duppers]

3. We shall soon know.

Yep, yep, I'm sure.