<h2>Eyes Peeled</h2>
When the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) turns back on and starts smashing particles again sometime in 2021, it may also point us in the direction of dark matter.
For years, scientists have been <a href="https://futurism.com/dark-matter-conflicting-results">trying and failing</a> to spot the invisible stuff that makes up the majority of matter in the universe. But now researchers have a new target: a comparatively heavy and long-lived particle that may be produced by the high-energy collisions at the LHC.
The particle is thought by some physicists to occasionally interact with dark matter — giving scientists a new lead toward spotting the elusive material.
<h2>Dangling Particle</h2>
Research <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.131801">published this month</a> in Physical Review Letters describes how systems that have already been put in place at the LHC could detect these long-lived particles, which are named as such because they travel slower and last longer than other particles generated by LHC experiments.
The time difference is on the scale of nanoseconds, according to a University of Chicago <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-04-scientists-mysterious-dark-world-particle.html">press release</a> — something that the LHC was already able to detect and will be even better at once upgrades are completed.
&#8220;If the particle is there, we just have to find a way to dig it out,&#8221; University of Chicago physicist LianTao Wang said in the press release. &#8220;Usually, the key is finding the question to ask.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-04-scientists-mysterious-dark-world-particle.html">Scientists invent way to trap mysterious &#8216;dark world&#8217; particle at Large Hadron Collider</a> [University of Chicago newsroom via Phys.org]
More on dark matter: <a href="https://futurism.com/oxford-scientist-may-have-solved-mystery-dark-matter">An Oxford Scientist May Have Solved the Mystery of Dark Matter</a>

"Usually, the key is finding the question to ask."

When the Large Hadron Collider turns on, it may trap dark matter

Spotted

Scientists have a new plan to try and spot dark matter by searching for particular particles once the Large Hadron Collider's upgrades are complete.

When the Large Hadron Collider Turns on, It May Trap Dark Matter

Physicists are getting ready to look for a new, slow-moving particle.

<h2>Do You Wanna Build a Snowball Chamber?</h2>
It&#8217;s not often that physicists take inspiration from Disney musicals when designing new experiments, but a team hell-bent on detecting dark matter says it did just that.
To find dark matter — that&#8217;s the elusive, invisible stuff that makes up most of the matter in the universe — scientists have <a href="https://futurism.com/dark-matter-conflicting-results">built gigantic apparatuses</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-worlds-most-sensitive-dark-matter-detector-just-found-nothing">probed deep underground</a>, and <a href="https://futurism.com/virus-bead-find-dark-matter">tiny floating beads</a>. Now, apparently, they&#8217;re turning to kids&#8217; movies as well.
Matthew Szydagis, a researcher at SUNY Albany, was compelled to investigate the properties of supercooled water after watching YouTube videos of people playing around with it, according to a <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-04-snowball-chamber-supercooled-dark.html">press release</a> by the American Physical Society, &#8220;especially when he saw it again during the Disney movie &#8216;Frozen.'&#8221;
<h2>The Cold Of Space Never Bothered Me Anyway</h2>
The idea is to look for particle-sized bits of ice in small bubbles of supercooled water.
&#8220;All of my work is motivated by the search for dark matter, a form of matter we&#8217;re sure is out there because we can observe its indirect gravitational effects,&#8221; Szydagis said in the press release. &#8220;It makes up a significant fraction of the universe, but we have yet to uncover direct, conclusive and unambiguous evidence of it within the lab.&#8221;
Szydagis is looking for dark matter using supercooled water, which can be kept as a liquid beneath water&#8217;s usual freezing temperature as long as it&#8217;s in a vacuum-sealed container. He presented his work, <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.09253">first shared online</a> last year, at an <a href="http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/APR19/Session/J09.8">American Physical Society meeting</a> on Sunday.
<h2>Subatomic Particles Are Worth Melting For</h2>
In particular, Szydagis&#8217; team learned that neutrons cause supercooled water to freeze when they collide with it, leading the scientists to speculate that they may have a new way to detect dark matter, which is thought to share similarities with neutrons.
They haven’t spotted any dark matter yet, as their particular research was only intended to show that a supercooled water chamber could work as a subatomic particle detector at all. But future projects may use their design in a real search for the stuff.
READ MORE: <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-04-snowball-chamber-supercooled-dark.html">&#8216;Snowball chamber&#8217; helps researchers use supercooled water to search for dark matter</a> [American Physical Society via Phys.org]
More on dark matter: <a href="https://futurism.com/oxford-scientist-may-have-solved-mystery-dark-matter">An Oxford Scientist May Have Solved the Mystery of Dark Matter</a>

Dark matter may trigger chambers of supercooled water to freeze.

Disney's "Frozen" inspired new attempt to find dark matter

Fellow Kids

Inspired by "Frozen," scientists built an apparatus that detects subatomic particles when they collide with supercooled water. It may help spot dark matter.

Disney’s “Frozen” Inspired New Attempt to Find Dark Matter

Let It Go: Dark matter may trigger supercooled water to freeze.

<h2>Cut My Life Into Pieces</h2>
A few months ago, astronomers noticed that a well-known asteroid that orbits the sun way out past Mars had sprouted a long, comet-like tail.
Now, data from the <a href="https://futurism.com/hubble-image-triangulum-galaxy">Hubble Telescope</a> reveals that something has set 6478 Gault off kilter and it&#8217;s self-destructing, spinning itself into pieces.
&#8220;It could have been on the brink of instability for 10 million years,&#8221; University of Hawaii astronomer Jan Kleyna, who led the research into Gault&#8217;s new tail, said in <a href="https://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1906/">a press release</a>. &#8220;Even a tiny disturbance, like a small impact from a pebble, might have triggered the recent outbursts.&#8221;
<h2>This Is My Last Re-YORP</h2>
Scientists from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) suspect that Gault has fallen victim to the YORP effect, in which sunlight hitting the asteroid heats its surface, causing a shift in the asteroid&#8217;s momentum.
Sometimes, as the astronomers suspect is the case with Gault, this momentum can speed up the asteroid&#8217;s spin to the point that it begins to disintegrate. The long tail that appeared in January could be debris given off by a series of landslide as Gault began to spin faster.
While NASA and ESA scientists approximate that roughly one of the 800,000 asteroids orbiting between Mars and Jupiter goes through a so-called YORP disruption every year, being able to directly study the materials that Gault shreds off of itself could help astronomers better understand the history of our solar system.
<h2>Disintegration, Debrising</h2>
But the YORP effect may not spell doom for Gault. <a href="https://www.thisisinsider.com/nasa-hubble-telescope-gault-asteroid-spinning-apart-images-2019-3">Insider </a><a href="https://www.thisisinsider.com/nasa-hubble-telescope-gault-asteroid-spinning-apart-images-2019-3">reports</a> that it&#8217;s certainly possible that 6478 Gault could disintegrate into nothing. But it&#8217;s also possible that the asteroid&#8217;s gravitational pull will manage to hold enough debris together that a new version of Gault is reborn.
&#8220;In all cases, this will release a lot of dust, which will be spectacular,&#8221; Olivier Hainaut, another astronomer who worked on the research, told Business Insider. &#8220;The radiation pressure from the sun will disperse the dust, leaving either the new Gault or the binary/multiple system behind.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thisisinsider.com/nasa-hubble-telescope-gault-asteroid-spinning-apart-images-2019-3">The Hubble telescope caught an asteroid ripping itself to pieces due to the &#8216;YORP effect&#8217;</a> [Insider]
More on Hubble: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/wounded-hubble-borrowed-time">The Wounded Hubble Could be Back Soon, But It&#8217;s on Borrowed Time</a>

Astronomers just spotted an asteroid ripping itself apart

John Gault

A distant asteroid named 6478 Gault likely fell prey to the YORP effect — sunlight caused it to spin so fast that it's ripping apart.

Astronomers Just Spotted an Asteroid Ripping Itself Apart

6478 Gault is spinning itself into pieces.

<h2>Master of Reality</h2>
A <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-is-pointing-inexorably-to-mind/">provocative new column</a> in Scientific American floats the idea that what&#8217;s fundamentally real in the universe — its actual, base reality — isn&#8217;t the quarks, fields, and quantum phenomena that seem to comprise it.
Instead, according to scientist and philosopher Bernardo Kastrup, some are starting to suspect that matter itself is an illusion — and that the only real thing is information.
<h2>Information Space</h2>
The basic idea is that the physical universe exists because we perceive it — it&#8217;s a sort of mass hallucination we use to make sense of the mathematical relationships of objects.
Make no mistake, this is a pretty far-out idea. But, according to Kastrup, it&#8217;s gaining ground.
&#8220;To some physicists, this indicates that what we call &#8216;matter,&#8217; with its solidity and concreteness — is an illusion; that only the mathematical apparatus they devise in their theories is truly real, not the perceived world the apparatus was created to describe in the first place,&#8221; Kastrup wrote.
<div>
READ MORE: <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/physics-is-pointing-inexorably-to-mind/">Physics Is Pointing Inexorably to Mind</a> [Scientific American]
</div>
<div>
More on reality: <a href="https://futurism.com/quantum-physics-experiment-reality-objective">Quantum Physics Experiment Suggests That Reality Isn’t Objective</a>
</div>

"To some physicists, this indicates that what we call 'matter,' with its solidity and concreteness — is an illusion."

Physicists are starting to suspect physical reality is an illusion

Mr. Universe

According to scientist and philosopher Bernardo Kastrup, some physicists are starting to suspect that matter and reality are complex illusions.

Physicists Are Starting to Suspect Physical Reality Is an Illusion

They think the physical universe might be a sort of mass hallucination derived from pure information.

<h2>Well, Actually</h2>
You probably learned in school — or space camp — that Venus is Earth&#8217;s closest planetary neighbor.
Ready to get your mind blown? A new model of the planets&#8217; orbit shuffles things around, calculating that Earth&#8217;s closest neighbor, on average, is actually Mercury. In fact, it says that every other planet in the solar system&#8217;s nearest neighbor is Mercury as well.
<h2>Averaging Out</h2>
Sure, Venus comes closer to Earth than Mercury, but it also spends a lot of time on the opposite side of the sun. Scientists from NASA, Los Alamos National Lab, and the U.S. Army put together a new model <a href="https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.3.20190312a/full/">published Tuesday in Physics Today</a> that breaks down the average distance among planets — and it turns out that they&#8217;re all, on average, closest to Mercury.
The team <a href="https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.3.20190312a/full/media/sizes/full/figure4.gif">built an animation</a> showing how even though Earth and Venus briefly pass each other, Mercury&#8217;s close proximity to the sun meant that its nearest and farthest distances from Earth weren&#8217;t that different. It&#8217;s that tight orbit around the sun which, when averaging out all the distances between the planets, keep Mercury from ever getting too far away from any given planet.
<h2>Orbituary</h2>
Sure, this doesn&#8217;t change much. The planets are still in the same order that they were in when you learned about them as a kid, in terms of orbits.
But if you want to blow someone&#8217;s mind — or maybe bore them with math — at Happy Hour, you can whip out some <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/first-moon-outside-solar-system">nifty new space trivia</a> about the solar system\.
READ MORE: <a href="https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.3.20190312a/full/">Venus is not Earth’s closest neighbor</a> [Physics Today]
More on space: <a href="https://futurism.com/mercury-is-alive-new-photos-show-evidence-of-tectonic-activity">Mercury is Alive: New Photos Show Evidence of Tectonic Activity</a>

This is the physics equivalent of "Well, actually..."

Mercury is every planet in the solar system's closest neighbor

Welcome Wagon

Every picture of the solar system shows Venus as our closest neighbor. Sure, it comes closer to Earth than any planet, but on average Mercury is closer.

Mercury Is Every Planet in the Solar System’s Closest Neighbor

On average, at least.

<h2>Fall Back</h2>
Russian scientists have apparently reversed the flow of time in an experiment they conducted on a quantum computer.
The finding is unlikely to lead to a time machine that would work on people. But the team of physicists managed to restore IBM&#8217;s public quantum computer to the state it had been in just a moment earlier, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40765-6#Abs1">according to research</a> published Wednesday in the journal Nature Scientific Reports — a nuanced result, but one that could have striking implications for the future of computing, quantum physics, and our understanding of time itself.
&#8220;We have artificially created a state that evolves in a direction opposite to that of the thermodynamic arrow of time,&#8221; Gordey Lesovik, a quantum physicist from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology who led the research project, said in a <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-03/miop-prt031119.php">university-published press release</a>.
<h2> Great Scott</h2>
Lesovik&#8217;s team worked with scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois to run thousands of experiments on a quantum system programmed to reverse time&#8217;s arrow on a single electron.
After thousands of trials, the physicists managed to restore the quantum computer&#8217;s earlier state about 85 percent of the time, but only if they were working with a simplified, two-qubit system. A more <a href="https://futurism.com/quantum-computer-first-practical">complex quantum computer</a> with three qubits was too chaotic, and the time reversal experiment only worked 49 percent of the time.
Just like research into <a href="https://futurism.com/teleportation-could-possible-using-quantum-physics">quantum teleportation</a> has nothing to do with transporting people, there&#8217;s no reason to link this study to the notion of a machine that could travel through time. Rather, the scientists hope that their work can help quantum computer scientists make sure their software is actually doing what it&#8217;s supposed to by kicking it back through time and double checking its work.
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-03/miop-prt031119.php">Physicists reverse time using quantum computer</a> [Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology newsroom via EurekAlert]
More on quantum computers: <a href="https://futurism.com/scientists-building-quantum-computer-acts-like-brain">Scientists Are Building a Quantum Computer That “Acts Like a Brain”</a>

"We have artificially created a state that evolves in a direction opposite to that of the thermodynamic arrow of time."

Russian scientists used a quantum computer to turn back time

If I Could Turn Back Time

Russian physicists, armed with a quantum computer, managed to send a single electron back in time, resetting the computer to its state from a moment earlier

Russian Scientists Used a Quantum Computer to Turn Back Time

The quantum system was kicked a tiny fraction of a second backward in time. 

<h2>He Said, She Said</h2>
A new quantum physics experiment just lent evidence to a mind-boggling idea that was previously limited to the realm of theory, <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613092/a-quantum-experiment-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/">according to the MIT Technology Review</a> — that under the right conditions, two people can observe the same event, see two different things happen, and both be correct.
<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.05080">According to research</a> shared to the preprint server arXiv on Tuesday, physicists from Heriot-Watt University demonstrated for the first time how two people can experience different realities by recreating a classic quantum physics thought experiment.
<h2>Buddy System</h2>
The experiment involves two people observing a single photon, the smallest quantifiable unit of light that can act as either a particle or a wave under different conditions. The photon can exist in one of two alignments, but until the moment someone actually measures it to determine which, the photon is said to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/researchers-quantum-computers-hacking-tool">exist in a superposition</a> — both conditions are true at the same time.
In the thought experiment, a scientist quietly analyzes the photon and determines its alignment. Another scientist, unaware of the first&#8217;s measurement, is able to confirm that the photon — and thus the first scientist&#8217;s measurement — still exists in a quantum superposition of all possible outcomes.
As a result, each scientist experienced a different reality. Both are technically true, even though they disagree with each other.
<h2>Concrete Evidence</h2>
Bringing this idea from thought experiment to reality involved an experimental setup with lasers, beam splitters, and a series of six photons that were measured by various pieces of equipment that stood in for the two scientists.
Other researchers previously devised the experimental setup, according to MIT Tech, but this is the first time that anyone managed to pull the experiment off.
Though the research has yet to be vetted and published by an academic journal, its findings lend real evidence to the sort of brain-melting ideas that wow physics undergrads — when it comes to the realm of quantum physics, there may be no such thing as a shared objective reality.
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613092/a-quantum-experiment-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/">A quantum experiment suggests there’s no such thing as objective reality</a> [MIT Technology Review]
More on quantum physics: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/smallest-radio-frequency-quantum-mechanics">Researchers Tune in to Smallest Radio Frequency in Quantum Mechanics</a>

It's the first study to demonstrate a particular idea in physics that was only ever theoretical.

Quantum physics experiment suggests that reality isn't objective

Reality Bites

A new quantum physics experiment demonstrates that objective reality may not exist. Two scientists can make irreconcilable measurements of an event.

Quantum Physics Experiment Suggests That Reality Isn’t Objective

When it comes to quantum physics, there may be no such thing as a shared objective reality.

<h2>Important Update</h2>
Conventional wisdom in physics dictates that sound waves are massless fluctuations in pressure that travel through materials like air, water, and eardrums — and can&#8217;t travel through empty space.
That&#8217;s why the recent discovery that sound waves actually do carry a trace amount of mass is so shocking — it&#8217;s been right under scientists&#8217; noses for centuries. Even more surprising, according to Scientific American&#8217;s <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sound-by-the-pound-surprising-discovery-hints-sonic-waves-carry-mass/">reporting on the finding</a>, is that sonic waves seem to carry negative mass: they appear to slowly drift upwards rather than falling down to Earth.
<h2>Tiny Helpers</h2>
New research, <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.084501">recently published</a> in the journal Physical Review Letters, found that sound waves carry trace amounts of mass in the form of tiny, <a href="https://futurism.com/scientists-develop-new-methods-to-manipulate-quantum-particles">particle-like &#8220;phonons&#8221;</a>.
<a href="https://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.97.134516">Previous research</a> by one of the same scientists first found this negative gravity phenomenon, but only when the sound was traveling through specific materials called superfluids, through which waves can flow with zero resistance. But in this new study, physicists calculated that sound waves can also carry mass through more conventional liquids, as well as solids and gases.
<h2>Plain Sight</h2>
If this research holds up to further scrutiny, it could mean that physicists were wrong about something thought to be so simple that it&#8217;s taught in middle school science classes.
But replicating this new finding could prove difficult — Scientific American reports that modern technology isn&#8217;t sensitive enough to measure the minuscule amounts of mass that a sonic wave can carry. As a result, the scientists <a href="https://physics.aps.org/articles/v12/23">aren’t sure themselves</a> how the mass of the phonons flows along with the wave.
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sound-by-the-pound-surprising-discovery-hints-sonic-waves-carry-mass/">Sound by the Pound: Surprising Discovery Hints Sonic Waves Carry Mass</a> [Scientific American]
More on sound: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/laser-beam-speech-mit">MIT Used a Laser to Transmit Audio Directly Into a Person&#8217;s Ear</a>

The research contradicts a major assumption in physics,

Sound may be carried by tiny particles with negative gravity

Rewrite The Textbooks

New research upends the common assumption that sound waves are weightless. It turns out they carry a trace amount of mass in the form of phonons.

Sound May Be Carried by Tiny Particles With Negative Gravity

Long thought to be weightless, new research suggests sonic waves have mass.

<h2>Mass Effect</h2>
For many years, astrophysicists have theorized that an invisible material they call &#8220;dark matter&#8221; makes up the majority of the universe&#8217;s mass. Any behavior of objects in the universe that can&#8217;t be explained by ordinary mass — such as how galaxies rotate in space — could be due to the gravitational effects dark matter.
But now, a <a href="http://www.uni-mainz.de/presse/aktuell/7645_ENG_HTML.php">bold new theory</a> from European researchers suggests a startling alternative: the strange behavior of galaxies could be due to the combined mass of untold zillions of photons, each of which has just a tiny bit of mass.
<h2>Photon Calling</h2>
Conventional wisdom is that photons <a href="http://www.desy.de/user/projects/Physics/Relativity/SR/light_mass.html">have zero mass</a> (although that claim <a href="http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/photon_mass.html">is complicated</a>). But if each one had just a &#8220;vanishingly tiny&#8221; mass, according to a <a href="http://www.uni-mainz.de/presse/aktuell/7645_ENG_HTML.php">new paper</a> published in The Astrophysical Journal, the combined effect could explain large-scale cosmic phenomena, including the rotation of galaxies.
&#8220;By assuming a certain photon mass, much smaller than the current upper limit, we can show that this mass would be sufficient to generate additional forces in a galaxy and that these forces would be roughly large enough to explain the rotation curves,&#8221; researcher Dmitry Budker, a professor at the Helmholtz Institute Mainz, said in a <a href="http://www.uni-mainz.de/presse/aktuell/7645_ENG_HTML.php">press release</a>. &#8220;This conclusion is extremely exciting.&#8221;
<h2>Dark Matter</h2>
According to Budker and his colleagues, the mind-bending new theory could partially explain the effects physicists conventionally attribute to dark matter — or even &#8220;completely eliminate the need&#8221; for dark matter to explain some phenomena.
&#8220;We don’t currently consider photon mass to be the solution to the rotation-curve problem. But it could be part of the solution,&#8221; Budker said in the press release. &#8220;However, we need to keep an open mind as long as we do not actually know what dark matter is.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="http://www.uni-mainz.de/presse/aktuell/7645_ENG_HTML.php">Physicists analyze the rotational dynamics of galaxies and the influence of the mass of the photon</a> [Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz]
More on dark matter: <a href="https://futurism.com/oxford-scientist-may-have-solved-mystery-dark-matter">An Oxford Scientist May Have Solved the Mystery of Dark Matter</a>

New theory: mass of photons could explain effects of dark matter

Photon Finish

Researchers believe the strange behavior of galaxies could be caused by the combined mass of untold zillions of photons and not dark matter.

New Theory: Mass of Photons Could Explain Effects of Dark Matter

If each photon had just a tiny bit of mass, it could upend the theory of dark matter.

<h2>Cosmic Growth Hormones</h2>
Cosmologists have a new guess about why the universe is expanding outward faster than data says it ought to.
The hypothesis, <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1811.04083.pdf">according to research</a> first shared on the preprint server ArXiv in November, goes as follows: When the universe was just a mere 100,000 years old, a mysterious energy field that scientists are calling &#8220;early dark energy&#8221; formed, rapidly pushing the still-forming cosmos outward even faster than before.
Another 100,000 years after that, the research suggests, the strange energy field faded away — and left the young, accelerated universe to its own devices.
<h2>Let&#8217;s Back Up</h2>
This new proposal is one of several intended to solve the discrepancy between the calculated rate of the universe&#8217;s expansion and actual observations of the cosmos as they rocket outward away from us, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/science/cosmos-hubble-dark-energy.html">according to The New York Times</a>.
Right now, the observable universe is expanding 9 percent faster than calculations suggest it did at the beginning of time. Scientists currently operate under the assumption that a <a href="https://futurism.com/dark-energy-survey-discovers-remnants-other-galaxies-own">mysterious force called dark energy</a> drives the universe&#8217;s expansion. The periodic appearance of energy fields akin to &#8220;early dark energy&#8221; could explain the various periods of increased acceleration in the history of the universe, reports the NYT.
In fact, it could explain them well enough to account for the entire discrepancy between astronomers&#8217; calculations and their observations.
&#8220;Maybe the universe does this from time-to-time?&#8221; Adam Riess, a Johns Hopkins University scientist who is also working to <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.01424v1">consolidate that discrepancy</a> but didn&#8217;t contribute to the new research, told the NYT. He added that it&#8217;s &#8220;not the first time the universe has been expanding too fast.&#8221;
<h2>Breaking New Ground</h2>
Other explanations for the up-and-down acceleration of the universe&#8217;s growth rate would mean introducing yet-undiscovered types of subatomic particles or simply poring back over previous calculations to look for errors, reports the NYT.
And while finding that some scientist made some error along the way would be more pragmatic, the ideas that involve previously-unexplored aspects of physics, like early dark energy fields or new kinds of particles, are gaining ground.
&#8220;I was surprised how it came out,&#8221; Marc Kamionkowski, a Johns Hopkins cosmologist who was part of the study, told the NYT. &#8220;This works.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/science/cosmos-hubble-dark-energy.html">Have Dark Forces Been Messing With the Cosmos?</a> [The New York Times]
More on dark energy: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/new-theory-universe-bubble-inflated-dark-energy">New Theory: The Universe is a Bubble, Inflated by Dark Energy</a>

"This is not the first time the universe has been expanding too fast."

Bizarre new theory: something tampered with the early universe

Growing Pains

Cosmologists have long sought to reconcile differences among calculations and observations of how fast the universe is growing. A new idea may explain how.

/Physics