Dark Energy
It looks as if most of the mass of the Universe is in the form of ‘dark energy’-an incredible proposition. Dark energy-not to be confused with dark matter is gravitationally repulsive, making the Universe expand faster and faster. Nobody knows what dark energy is. It could be the energy of outer space, as was suggested by Albert Einstein in 1917, or it could be a mysterious new field.
Familiar matter, such as atoms makes up only about 4% of the mass of the Universe. 22% is dark matter, as yet unidentified, while 74% is in the form of dark energy which pervades all space. Nothing less than the ultimate fate of the Universe hinges on the nature of dark energy. Accelerating expansion turns the Universe into a sort of inside-out black hole. In an accelerating Universe, the galaxies move apart from one another, faster and faster, and eventually disappear completely across one another’s event horizons. It looks from currant observation that the accelerating nature of space means that eternal expansion is the fate of the Universe, which would continue eternally. At present it is suggested by many cosmologists that our Universe is just one set amid an infinite assemblage of ‘universes’- a multiverse- itself embedded in inflating space that exists without end.
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