New measurements of a certain type of supernova seems to indicate that our expanding universe isn’t accelerating at all, negating any need to invoke a mysterious ‘dark energy’ to explain supernovae observations.

A strange new conception of how time warps across the universe does away with cosmology’s most mysterious entity, dark energy.

By Stuart Clark

In 1974, science fiction author Larry Niven wrote a murder mystery with an interesting premise: could you kill a man with a tiny black hole?

I won’t spoil the story, though I’m willing to bet most people would argue the answer is clearly yes. Intense gravity, tidal forces, and the event horizon would surely lead to a messy end.

But it turns out the scientific answer is a bit more interesting.

Dark matter, though invisible, weaves a vast cosmic web that binds galaxies together. For the first time, astronomers have captured a sharp image of one of these filaments, stretching 3 million light-years through space.

Using the powerful MUSE

The Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) is a panoramic integral-field spectrograph on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile. It operates in the visible wavelength range and helps astronomers reveal objects that cannot be found in imaging surveys.

A team led by Tokyo Metropolitan University has made significant strides in the search for dark matter. Using advanced spectrographic technology and the Magellan Clay Telescope, they observed galaxies. With just four hours of observations in the infrared range, they set new limits on the lifetime of dark matter. Their findings demonstrate the power of their technology and expand the search to less explored parts of the spectrum.

For decades, cosmologists have noticed that galaxies rotate in a way that suggests there is more mass than we can see, dubbed “dark matter.” This elusive substance is challenging to study because it is invisible and has unclear properties.