Welcome to the dark side
Nicole Larsen teaches us about the embarrassing cosmic pie chart, which shows that only 4% of the universe’s energy is in a form that we understand or can make in a lab. She then explains how distant exploding stars (supernovae) can be used to trace out the expansion history of the universe, showing that it is accelerating and presently dominated by dark energy, a mysterious substance with negative pressure.
After giving the story of this discovery, which led to a Nobel prize, she explains how the next generation of astronomical surveys could help us understand dark energy.
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