The universe we inhabit is full of mysteries, waiting to be solved.

The main challenge is not the

answers but the right questions to ask. It’s not about solving the riddle, it’s about knowing the
riddle.
Dark energy is still one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in astrophysics. It is an unknown
energy responsible for the accelerating expansion of the universe. This energy makes up
three-fourth of the universe but still scientists are not sure what it is exactly. They only know one
thing: Whatever it is, it’s leading us towards a dark and lonely world, with nothingness around.

An Expanding Universe
No one could think that a universe that began in Big Bang could be expanding. After the Big
Bang, space itself expanded, but as the matter began to form, the gravitational attraction
between them slowed down the expansion and matter interacted to form stars and galaxies. But
after all this dramatic slowing down, something strange started happening; Expansion started
again.
Before 1925, it was thought the universe was static. By studying the light from exploding stars,
known as Supernovae, Edwin Hubble found out that the galaxies were moving away from us.
Everyone thought that gravity must be slowing down that expansion but they did not have the
slightest idea that something above their comprehension was going on.

Blast From The Past

Ten billion years ago, when the universe was still in its early stages,a star in some distant part of
space took its last breath and exploded, resulting in a titanic supernova explosion, giving off
streams of light, to be observed later by an intelligent life inhabiting a green planet in a galaxy
called Milky Way.
This lucky year was 1997, when that light from a dying star finally reached Earth and our Eye In
The Sky- The Hubble Telescope observed a tiny portion of sky in the northern hemisphere and,
lucky enough, caught the glimpse of that light from the blast in the past. This supernova, named
1977ff, was the farthest supernova ever detected.
Nobody knew how important those pictures from ‘deep field’ study were until astronomer Adam
Rieiss of Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD
along with his team of assiduous and diligent astronomers worked hard by digging deep into all
the photos taken by Hubble to weave these pieces of puzzle into a cohesive and unified
information.
It was found that the universe was expanding at an accelerating rate, a result nobody had
anticipated. Looking in the past, we got to know that the expansion rate was much less in the
past- 10 billion years ago, when the supernova explosion occurred.
But the question one might ask is, How did they draw these results? Well, the record-breaking
supernova appeared brighter than it should have been if the universe was expanding at a
steady rate. But a decelerating universe, due to gravity, would hold galaxies more closer
together and objects in them would appear relatively brighter.
"The supernova appears to be one of a special class of explosions that allows
astronomers to understand how the universe's expansion has changed over
time, much as the way a parent follows a child's growth spurts by marking a
doorway," said Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI),
Baltimore, MD. "This supernova shows us the universe is behaving like a driver
who slows down approaching a red stoplight and then hits the accelerator
when the light turns green."

When the light from the dying star started its journey, the universe was slowing down due
to the impact of gravitational force but later on, something caused it to expand at an
accelerated rate.
The universe was decelerating some seven to eight billion years after the big bang but
then suddenly some anti-gravity force took over and started dominating the universe.
It was a shocking revelation.
"Long ago, when the light left this distant supernova, the universe may have
been slowing down due to the mutual tug of all the mass in the universe," said
Riess. "Billions of years later, when the light left more recent supernovas, the
universe had begun accelerating, stretching the expanse between galaxies and
making objects in them appear dimmer.”
You might be wondering about the purpose of telling this story. Well, the question, ‘What
caused this expansion’? leads towards our topic. Some kind of energy must be present
there, responsible for this accelerating expansion. We all know that the nature of
gravity is attractive so there has to be some repulsive force present that won over
gravity some billions of years ago. We named it Dark Energy.

Cosmological Constant
Nearly a century ago, Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity concluded that the universe
must collapse under the pull of gravity but at that time, it was thought that the universe was
static, so to balance the equations, Einstein introduced a cosmological constant whose gravity
was repulsive! At that time, he had no idea if it was real or not. Later when Edwin Hubble found
out that the universe was not static and was expanding, Einstein discarded his theory and called
it the ‘ biggest professional blunder’ of his life. But now, once again, scientists are trying to find
answers by reviewing his discarded theory.

Vacuum Is Not Empty

According to Hiesenberg’s quantum uncertainty principle, a vacuum is not empty, rather it is
simmering with particles living on borrowed time and borrowed energy, pairs of particles and
antiparticles popping in and out of existence. Vacuum appears to have its own energy density,
known as vacuum energy, which is closely related to dark energy. The energy of quantum
vacuum is also repulsive. However, physicists have not been able to reliably
compute just how repulsive "nothing" is and have thus sought alternate
explanations

There are a number of candidates for dark energy, yet none of them is confirmed. There is a
possibility that we still do not understand the true nature of gravity or maybe there are extra
space dimensions responsible for the energy causing the expansion to accelerate.

The Universe Is Disappearing

Due to dark energy, galaxies are moving away from us at an ever-increasing speed. We can see
them when the light from these galaxies reaches us but once they start moving with speeds
greater than speed of light, light won’t be able to bridge the gap between us. Light from these
galaxies would never reach us as space would continue to expand, pushing us towards
nothingness around. Human beings won’t be able to go anywhere beyond the local cluster. No
signals could be received from these distant stars to study or observe them. The universe is
going away from us and there is nothing we can do about it. Looking from a positive side, the
age we are living in is the best time for humanity to explore the cosmos and study the origins of
the universe because in no time, all the evidence would fade from our view.