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WHAT IS DARK ENERGY?

Dark energy is a phrase used by physicists to describe a mysterious 'something' that is causing unusual things to happen in the universe. 

The universe is full of matter and the attractive force of gravity pulls all matter together. 

Then came 1998 and the Hubble Space Telescope observations of very distant supernovae that showed that, a long time ago, the universe was actually expanding more slowly than it is today.

The universe is not only expanding, but it is expanding faster and faster as time goes by,' Dr Kathy Romer, scientist at the Dark Energy Survey told MailOnline, as illustrated in this Nasa graphic

The universe is not only expanding, but it is expanding faster and faster as time goes by,' Dr Kathy Romer, scientist at the Dark Energy Survey told MailOnline, as illustrated in this Nasa graphic

So the expansion of the universe has not been slowing due to gravity, as everyone thought, it has been accelerating. 

No one expected this, no one knew how to explain it. But something was causing it.

'The universe is not only expanding, but it is expanding faster and faster as time goes by,' Dr Kathy Romer, scientist at the Dark Energy Survey told MailOnline.

'What we'd expect is that the expansion would get slower and slower as time goes by, because it has been nearly 14 billion years since the Big Bang.'

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