Astronomers have uncovered clues about the source of the mysterious energy that has driven the continuous expansion of the universe for the past 13.8 billion years.
According to Live Science, dark energy accounts for about 70% of our universe and is believed to have emerged after the Big Bang event—13.8 billion years ago—to facilitate the universe’s development.
However, the origin of this mysterious energy remains unclear.
In recent years, some astronomers have proposed a radical theory that instead of spreading throughout space, dark energy may originate from the centers of black holes.
Black holes may be the source of dark energy driving the universe’s expansion – (AI Illustration: ANH THƯ).
Many consider this a bizarre hypothesis. However, a newly published study in the journal Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics has provided some clues.
The authors claim they have identified a correlation between two seemingly unrelated phenomena.
This involves the increasing density of dark energy in the universe and the growing mass of black holes as the universe ages.
Professor Gregory Tarlé, a physicist at the University of Michigan, the lead author of the study, suggests the possibility of existing “mini Big Bang explosions” in reverse.
In this scenario, massive stars transform into dark energy during their gravitational collapse into black holes.
To search for clues, they utilized the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) mounted on the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope located in Arizona, USA, to track the positions of millions of galaxies monthly to study how the universe has expanded over time.
This allows them to infer the density of dark energy throughout the universe’s lifecycle based on the rate at which it expands.
By comparing this data with the development of black holes at various stages in the universe’s lifecycle, the researchers uncovered an intriguing finding.
“These two phenomena align. As new black holes are formed from the deaths of massive stars, the amount of dark energy in the universe increases in tandem,” said Associate Professor Duncan Farrah from the University of Hawaii, a co-author of the study.
If this hypothesis is proven true, it could help solve an increasingly significant puzzle in cosmology.
For years, astronomers have discovered that the universe appears to be expanding at different rates depending on where they look.
This discrepancy likely depends on the existence of things they cannot see in each location: black holes.
