Astronomers and astrophysicists still have a hard time trying to untangle the mysteries regarding dark energy. Despite the fact that they’re sure about its existence, what exactly is dark energy and what’s it made of remain questions that have no answers, at least for now.
Dark energy is a theoretical form of energy that is believed to be responsible for the observed acceleration of the expansion of the Universe. It is considered to be one of the greatest mysteries of modern physics and cosmology, as its exact nature and origin are not well understood.
The concept of dark energy was first proposed in the late 1990s when astronomers discovered that the expansion of the Universe was accelerating, rather than slowing down as expected. In order to explain this phenomenon, scientists postulated the existence of an unknown force that was pushing the Universe apart at an accelerating rate. This force was dubbed “dark energy”, as it is invisible and has yet to be directly detected.
Can black holes influence the expansion of the Universe?
A team of researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa has made a groundbreaking discovery about black holes and their relationship to the expanding Universe. The team used existing data spanning 9 billion years and observed supermassive black holes at the centers of ancient galaxies to uncover evidence of a phenomenon called “cosmological coupling,” which was predicted in Einstein’s theory of gravity but never before observed. SciTechDaily brings details.
The researchers found that the mass of these black holes grew over billions of years in a way that couldn’t be explained by standard processes such as mergers or gas accretion. Instead, the mass growth matched predictions for black holes that enclose vacuum energy, material that arises from squeezing matter to extreme points without breaking Einstein’s equations.
The researchers suggest that the combined vacuum energy of black holes that were created by the demises of the first stars in the Universe agrees with the measured quantity of dark energy in our Universe. These findings could reshape our understanding of black holes and dark energy, and provide a framework for future research in these fields.
