By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – The universe is expanding faster than previously believed, they held scientists, a surprising discovery that could test of the theory of relativity of Albert Einstein, a pillar of cosmology which he has endured all kinds of questions over a century.
The discovery that the universe expands from 5 to 9 percent faster than believed, announced jointly by NASA and the European Space Agency also carries assumptions about what occupies 95 percent of the cosmos that emits no light or radiation, scientists said Thursday.
“Maybe the universe is fooling us,” said Alex Filippenko, an astronomer at the University of California and co-author of a study on the discovery to be published shortly.
The rate of expansion of the universe does not match the predictions based on measurements of the remnant radiation from the Big Bang explosion that gave birth to the universe known 13,800 million years ago.
One possibility regarding the discrepancy is that the universe is unknown subatomic particles, like neutrinos, traveling almost as fast as the speed of light, 300,000 kilometers per second.
Another idea is that the so-called “dark energy”, a mysterious antigravity force discovered in 1998, could be pushing galaxies with greater force than previously thought.
“This could be an important clue to understanding the parts of the universe that make up 95 percent of everything and they do not emit light, like dark energy, dark matter and dark radiation,” said senior physicist and author of the study Adam Riess, who in 2011 shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the faster expansion of the universe.
The faster the universe’s expansion also raises the possibility that the theory of relativity Einstein is slightly wrong, NASA said.
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