{"id":306896,"date":"2025-07-31T15:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T15:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/306896\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T15:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T15:27:10","slug":"its-surrounding-our-galaxy-from-all-sides-new-cosmic-fluctuation-puzzles-cosmologists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/306896\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s surrounding our galaxy from all sides \u2014 New cosmic fluctuation puzzles cosmologists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cosmic fluctuations<\/strong> are the new big bang. Dark matter has long been seen as the invisible glue holding the galaxy together, stopping galaxies and clusters from drifting apart. But what if there\u2019s a simpler explanation\u2014one where gravity takes the lead? The idea of this hidden force first came from astronomer Fritz Zwicky, who used it to explain why galaxies in the Coma Cluster were moving faster than expected. Now, some researchers are challenging that view, suggesting dark matter might not be the full story after all.<\/p>\n

Dark Matter not a thing anymore?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no question that something strange is shaping the universe. As space keeps expanding, pushing into regions we can\u2019t even see yet, there\u2019s also something pulling matter in\u2014keeping our galaxy from flying away or smashing into each other. That\u2019s where dark energy and dark matter come in the galaxy. One stretches the cosmos; the other holds it together.<\/p>\n

We call them \u201cdark\u201d because we can\u2019t actually see them\u2014we only know they exist because of how other things move around them. For years, scientists believed dark matter outweighed normal matter five times over.<\/strong> Now, scientists have been able to look into the past using an instrument that measures the dark energy \u2013 but how is this possible if we can\u2019t see even in our own galaxy?<\/p>\n

Cosmic fluctuations around our galaxy measured by DESI around\u00a0<\/p>\n

Using 5,000 miniature robots inside a telescope stationed on a mountaintop, scientists have managed to peer 11 billion years into the past. That\u2019s how far the light from distant galaxies had to travel before reaching the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). This tool is helping researchers map the universe and our galaxy as it once was and track how it has stretched and changed over time.<\/p>\n

To explore that question, DESI has created the most detailed 3D map of the universe ever made. In just its first year, the team produced the most precise measurements yet of how fast the universe expanded in its early stages. According to data shared at scientific meetings in the U.S. and Italy, this is the first time researchers have pinned down the universe\u2019s expansion history<\/strong> during that youthful phase with less than 1% uncertainty.<\/p>\n

The project is managed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and according to DESI\u2019s director, Michael Levi, the results so far align closely with our current understanding of the universe\u2014known as the Lambda-CDM model. This model combines cold dark matter (CDM) with a cosmological constant (Lambda) to explain how matter slows expansion while dark energy speeds it up.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too early to study the collected data?<\/p>\n

Still, when scientists stacked DESI\u2019s findings alongside previous data, they noticed some small differences that the current model doesn\u2019t quite account for. It\u2019s too early to say if these are statistical quirks or signs of something deeper\u2014like a shift in how dark energy behaves<\/a> over time in our galaxy. Either way, with several more years of data ahead, DESI is just getting started. The results could also help refine other key measurements, such as the Hubble constant and the mass of elusive particles like neutrinos.<\/p>\n

DESI\u2019s precision is out of this world<\/p>\n

DESI has reached a level of precision that\u2019s never been seen before<\/a>. Looking back across 11 billion years of cosmic history, it has mapped the universe\u2019s expansion with just a 0.5% margin of error. Even more impressive, for the period between 8 and 11 billion years ago\u2014the universe\u2019s distant past\u2014it achieved a record precision of 0.82%. That kind of accuracy is notoriously hard to pull off. DESI has already outperformed the previous generation of surveys, like BOSS and eBOSS from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which took over ten years to reach similar results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cosmic fluctuations are the new big bang. Dark matter has long been seen as the invisible glue holding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3845],"tags":[74,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-306896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-physics","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114948554659361790","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}