麻豆淫院

(麻豆淫院Org.com) -- An Australian-based astronomy team, co-led by Professor Michael Drinkwater from the School of Mathematics and 麻豆淫院ics (SMP) at The University of Queensland (UQ), has shown that the mysterious 'dark energy' is indeed real and not a mistake in Einstein's theory of gravity.

Using the Anglo-Australian Telescope, 26 astronomers (from 14 different institutions) contributed to the 鈥榃iggleZ Dark Energy Survey', which mapped the distribution of galaxies over an unprecedented volume of the Universe.

Because light takes so long to reach Earth, it was the equivalent of looking seven billion years back in time 鈥� more than half way back to the Big Bang.

鈥淭his is the first individual galaxy survey to span such a long stretch of cosmic time,鈥� said Professor Drinkwater said.

It was only possible thanks to new Australian technology.鈥�

The survey, which covered more than 200,000 galaxies, took four years to complete and aimed to measure the properties of 鈥榙ark energy' - a concept first cast by Einstein in his Theory of General Relativity.

The scientist adapted his original equations to include the idea and later ruefully admitted that it was "his greatest blunder".

Dark energy is the name astronomers gave in the late 1990s to an unknown cause of the Universe's accelerating expansion.

This mysterious energy, that defies gravity, makes up about 72 percent of the Universe, with the remaining 24 percent constituting dark matter, and 4 percent making up the planets, stars and galaxies that we normally hear about.

鈥淭he discovery of acceleration was an enormous shock, because it went against everything we thought we knew about gravity,鈥� co-researcher Dr Tamara Davis from the University of Queensland said.

鈥淭he problem was, that supernova data couldn't tell us whether dark energy was genuinely there, or whether Einstein's theory of gravity itself was failing."

WiggleZ used two other kinds of observations to provide an independent check on the supernova results.

One measured the pattern of how galaxies are distributed in space and the other measured how quickly clusters of galaxies formed over time.

鈥淲iggleZ says dark energy is real. Einstein remains untoppled,鈥� said Dr Chris Blake, of Swinburne University, lead author of the recent findings, which will be published in two papers in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

According to Professor Warrick Couch, Director of the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, confirming the existence of the anti-gravity agent is a significant step forward in understanding the Universe.

鈥淎lthough the exact physics required to explain dark energy still remains a mystery, knowing that dark energy exists has advanced astronomers' understanding of the origin, evolution and fate of the Universe,鈥� he said.

The WiggleZ observations were possible due to a powerful spectrograph located at the Anglo-Australian Telescope.

The spectrograph was able to image 392 galaxies an hour, despite the galaxies being located halfway to the edge of the observable Universe.

鈥淲iggleZ has been a success because we have an instrument attached to the telescope, a spectrograph, that is one of the best in the world for large galaxy surveys of this kind,鈥� said Professor Matthew Colless, director of the Australian Astronomical Observatory.

The Wigglez survey involved 18 Australian astronomers, including 10 from Swinburne University of Technology.

It was led by Dr Chris Blake, Professor Warrick Couch and Professor Karl Glazebrook from Swinburne and Professor Michael Drinkwater from the University of Queensland.