London: Astronomers have claimed that
the expansion of the universe is accelerating, after studying thousands of galaxies using the Hubble Space Telescope.
In its research, an international team has analysed
nearly 446,000 galaxies to map the matter distribution and the
expansion history of the universe, proving again that Albert
Einstein's theory of relativity is indeed correct.
And the astronomers clearly found that the universe
was indeed growing faster and faster with time, as predicted
by Einstein.
"Our results confirmed that there is an unknown source
of energy in universe which is causing the cosmic expansion to
speed up, stretching the dark matter further apart exactly as
predicted by Einstein's theory," lead astronomer Ludovic Van
Waerbeke of Leiden University in the Netherlands said.
Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts
that space and time is a soft geometrical structure of which
the shape and evolution are entirely determined by the matter
within it.
According to the astronomers, the universe is composed
of dark matter and normal matter with third constituent called
"dark energy", which over the past two billion years has been
the force behind the accelerated expansion of the universe.
"The data from our study are consistent with these
predictions and show no deviation from Einstein's theories,"
Van Waerbeke said.
PTI
First Published: Friday, March 26, 2010, 12:53