Something very unusual is happening to the structure of the universe - and scientists are shocked

Experts in astronomy have made an exciting discovery that could change everything we think we know about the structure and expansion of our universe.

Recent discoveries have indicated that dark energy, which is the force that drives the expansion of our universe, may be getting weaker over time.

The discovery sparks questions around the current existing standard cosmological model of the universe – the lambda-cold dark matter (LCDM) model – which includes hypotheses posed by Albert Einstein, and assumes the universe is accelerating at a fixed rate.

However, New Scientists reports that, after analysing observations made by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) located in Arizona in the United States, scientists came to the conclusion that dark energy is, in fact, not constant.

Experts found that dark energy could actually be weakening over time. In March, they released new data results that strengthened this idea.

“This is exciting – it might actually be putting the standard model of cosmology in danger,” assistant research professor Yashar Akrami at the Autonomous University of Madrid told New Scientist.

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Rather than changing that existing LCDM model, it was suggested by Akrami and his colleagues that there is a redefining of dark energy as a “quintessence field”.

This, they say, would allow experts to integrate the standard cosmological model with advanced string theory.

“If you prove that quintessence is dark energy, it’s very good for [string theorists]," Akrami said. “That’s why the string theory community is really excited now.”

“We’ve always grown up thinking about the universe as having the gravitational force, and gravity fuels everything,” Pedro Ferreira, University of Oxford astrophysicist, explained. “But now there’s going to be an additional fifth force, which is due to the dark energy, which also fuels everything.”

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