Press Release Courtesy of: California Institute of Technology

PASADENA (November 22, 2005) Based on an ongoing study of exploding stars in the distant universe, astrophysicists have concluded that the effect of the "dark energy" that is speeding up the expansion of the universe is within 10 percent of that of Albert Einstein's celebrated cosmological constant. Cosmologists regard this result as a major step forward in understanding the nature of this mysterious property of the universe.

Reporting in an upcoming issue of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, an international team using a variety of instruments, including the 10-meter Keck telescopes, show the extent to which supernovae that erupt across the universe compare to those closer to home. Measuring the receding motion of supernovae at great distances has been intensely investigated since 1998, when researchers discovered that supernovae of a given recessional velocity seem to be fainter than they would be if the expansion of the universe was slowing down. This result, which has been observed consistently for the last eight years, strongly implies that the expansion rate of the universe is increasing.
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