Big Mysteries: Dark Energy

Scientists were shocked in 1998 when the expansion of the universe wasn't slowing down as expected by our best understanding of gravity at the time; the expansion was speeding up! That observation is just mind blowing, and yet it is true. In order to explain the data, physicists had to resurrect an abandoned idea of Einstein's now called dark energy. In this video, Fermilab's Dr. Don Lincoln tells us a little about the observations that led to the hypothesis of dark energy and what is the status of current research on the subject.

 

Science at Cal - Jeffrey Silverman - Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Runaway Universe

Some of the brightest and most fascinating objects in the Universe are exploding stars known as supernovae. These colossal outbursts result from the deaths of stars and for a time can outshine the entire galaxy in which they are found. Observations of very distant supernovae provided the first evidence that our Universe is accelerating in its expansion, likely due to a repulsive and mysterious "dark energy." It was these observations that were recently awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Dr. Jeff Silverman studies and observes supernovae with Prof. Alex Filippenko, and recently received his PhD from UC Berkeley. He was born and raised in Anaheim, CA just down the street from Disneyland and graduated from Rice University in Houston, TX in 2005. In the Fall, Jeff will be returning to Texas as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin.

 

New Light on Dark Energy

Is dark energy really accelerating the universe? Join Andrew Fraknoi and three Berkeley Lab cosmologists as they delve into nature's greatest mystery. Greg Aldering explores type 1 supernovae. Shirley Ho measures the cosmos through baryon oscillation and Eric Linder asks out of the box questions about the cosmos; could it be something even stranger than dark energy driving the universe? Series: "Science at the Theater" [2/2012]

Dark Energy

The universe is huge and getting bigger all the time, and we have we have dark energy - the most mysterious force in the universe - to blame/thank for it. Thought to make up more than 70% of the energy in the whole universe, Hank describes how dark energy was theorized to exist, and how scientists are trying to explain it.

Other Sci-Show videos

 

Supercomputing Sheds Light on the Dark Universe

At Argonne National Laboratory, scientists are using supercomputers to shed light on one of the great mysteries in science today, the Dark Universe. With Mira, a petascale supercomputer at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, a team led by physicists Salman Habib and Katrin Heitmann will run the largest, most complex simulation of the universe ever attempted.

By contrasting the results from Mira with state-of-the-art telescope surveys, the scientists hope to gain new insights into the distribution of matter in the universe, advancing future investigations of dark energy and dark matter into a new realm.

The team's research was named a finalist for the 2012 Gordon Bell Prize, an award recognizing outstanding achievement in high-performance computing.

 

The Evolution of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Over the course of its 50 year history, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has evolved from a groundbreaking particle physics research facility to one of the world's foremost multipurpose laboratories. Here lab director Persis Drell tells the story of how the focus of research at SLAC has grown and changed since the earliest days.

(SLAC is for Stanford Linear Accelerator Center)

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Yale: Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics, Lecture 22

Professor Bailyn offers a review of what is known so far about the expansion of the universe from observing galaxies, supernovae, and other celestial phenomena. The rate of the expansion of the universe is discussed along with the Big Rip theory and the balance of dark energy and dark matter in the universe over time. The point at which the universe shifts from accelerating to decelerating is examined. Worries related to the brightness of high redshift supernovae and the effects of gravitational lensing are explained. The lecture also describes current project designs for detecting supernovae at high or intermediate redshift, such as the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM) and Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST).

Other lectures from this course

Yale: Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics, Lecture 21

Class begins with a review of the mysterious nature of dark matter, which accounts for three quarters of the universe. Different models of the universe are graphed. The nature, frequency, and duration of supernovae are then addressed. Professor Bailyn presents data from the Supernova Cosmology Project and pictures of supernovae taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The discovery of dark energy is revisited and the density of dark energy is calculated. The Big Rip is presented as an alternative hypothesis for the fate of the universe.

Other lectures from this course

Yale: Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics, Lecture 20

ASTR 160 - Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics
Professor Charles Bailyn
Spring 2007
Source: Yale University, Open Yale Courses

This lecture introduces an important concept related to the past and future of the universe: the Scale factor, which is a function of time. With reference to a graph whose coordinates are the Scale factor and time, the problem of dark matter is addressed again. Cosmological redshifts are measured to determine the scale of the universe. The discovery of the repulsive, anti-gravitational force of dark energy is explained. The lecture concludes with discussion of Einstein's biggest mistake: the invention of the cosmological constant to balance gravity.

Other lectures from this course

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2011

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2011 was awarded "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae" with one half to Saul Perlmutter and the other half jointly to Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess.

Dark Energy Camera Construction Timelapse

The Dark Energy Camera is a 570-Megapixel digital camera being built at Fermilab. Once the mechanics of the support are tested and approved, the unit will be disassembled and shipped to its final assembly and mounting location at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. This time-lapse consists of 6 percent of the images captured from January through October of 2010. Information on this international project.

Other Fermilab videos