{"id":213191,"date":"2025-05-03T17:03:05","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T22:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/why-evolving-dark-energy-worries-some-physicists"},"modified":"2025-05-03T17:03:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T22:03:05","slug":"why-evolving-dark-energy-worries-some-physicists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/why-evolving-dark-energy-worries-some-physicists","title":{"rendered":"Why \u2018Evolving\u2019 Dark Energy Worries Some Physicists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fQkFS5yot5I?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In 2024 a shockwave rippled through the astronomical world, shaking it to the core. The disturbance didn\u2019t come from some astral disaster at the solar system\u2019s doorstep, however. Rather it arrived via the careful analysis of many far-distant galaxies, which revealed new details of the universe\u2019s evolution across eons of cosmic history. Against most experts\u2019 expectations, the result suggested that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/the-most-shocking-discovery-in-astrophysics-is-25-years-old\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\" data-rapid_p=\"28\" data-v9y=\"1\">dark energy <\/a>\u2014the mysterious force driving the universe\u2019s accelerating expansion\u2014was not an unwavering constant but rather a more fickle beast that was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/dark-energy-measurements-suggest-the-universe-might-be-way-weirder-than-we\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\" data-rapid_p=\"29\" data-v9y=\"1\">weakening over time<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The shocking claim\u2019s source was the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), run by an international collaboration at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. And it was so surprising because cosmologists\u2019 best explanations for the universe\u2019s observed large-scale structure have long assumed that dark energy is a simple, steady thing. But as Joshua Frieman, a physicist at the University of Chicago, says: \u201cWe tend to stick with the simplest theory that works\u2014until it doesn\u2019t.\u201d Heady with delight and confusion, theorists began scrambling to explain DESI\u2019s findings and resurfaced old, more complex ideas shelved decades ago.<\/p>\n<p>In March 2025 even more evidence accrued in favor of dark energy\u2019s dynamic nature in DESI\u2019s latest data release\u2014this time from a much larger, multimillion-galaxy sample. Dark energy\u2019s implied fading, it seemed, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/frozen-cosmic-sound-bubbles-suggest-dark-energy-is-shockingly-changeable\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\" data-rapid_p=\"30\">refusing to fade away<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2024 a shockwave rippled through the astronomical world, shaking it to the core. The disturbance didn\u2019t come from some astral disaster at the solar system\u2019s doorstep, however. Rather it arrived via the careful analysis of many far-distant galaxies, which revealed new details of the universe\u2019s evolution across eons of cosmic history. Against most experts\u2019 [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,385,219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology","category-evolution","category-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}