New 3D Cosmic Map Brings Future of Universe Into Question, Scientists Say

Researchers claim that findings from a new, much larger 3D cosmic map covering three times as many galaxies and previous efforts, may challenge the present idea of dark energy and raises questions about the future of the universe.

The largest ever 3D map of the universe, showcasing more than six million galaxies, has been revealed by scientists who claim it has challenged the current understanding of dark energy and the future of the universe.

The map is plotted on data collected by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (Desi) in Arizona and features three times as many galaxies as efforts preceding it, with several having their distances measured for the first time.

Researchers claim that by employing the map, they have been able to measure how quickly the universe has been expanding at various times in the past with unprecedented accuracy. The results confirm the common knowledge that the expansion of the universe is speeding up.

What the Map May Teach Us about Dark Energy and the Future of the Universe

But, the findings have also brought up the alluring possibility that dark energy – a mysterious, repulsive force that drives the process – is not constant throughout time as has previously been posited.

Dr Seshadri Nadathur, a co-author of the study and senior research fellow at the University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, said, “What we are seeing are some hints that it has actually been changing over time, which is quite exciting because it is not what the standard model of a cosmological constant dark energy would look like,” as reported by the Guardian.

Professor Carlos Frenk, a co-author from Durham University, claims that if dark energy was in fact constant in time, the future of the universe was simple: it would expand endlessly, forever. But if the clues in the map stand up, that notion would be called into question.

“Now all of that goes out the window and essentially we have to start from scratch, and that means revising our understanding of basic physics, our understanding of the big bang itself, and our understanding of the long-range forecast for the universe,” he told the Guardian, adding that the new hints left open the possibility that the universe might undergo a “big crunch”.

The research is yet to be peer-reviewed, having only just been published in a series of preprints. It conveys how the scientists first produced the 3D map, and then measured patterns in the distribution of galaxies that relate to sound waves that occurred in the early universe, known as baryon acoustic oscillations.

The size of these patterns is known to be regular, and thus the researchers were able to calibrate the distances to different galaxies included in the map, allowing them to calculate how quickly the universe has been expanding over the last 11 billion years, with a precision better than 0.5 percent over all times, and better than 1 percent between eight billion and 11 billion years ago.