Chinese scientists have reported new findings based on astronomical observations, providing novel evidence for the existence of dark energy in the cosmos.
The studies were released on Monday by the international collaboration of the eBOSS, the biggest ongoing galaxy survey in the world.
Based on the eBOSS observations, astronomers at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) measured the history of cosmic expansion and structural growth in a huge volume in a past universe that was never probed before, corresponding to a distance range of between 0.7 and 1.8 billion light years away.
They detected the existence of dark energy at a significance of 11 standard deviations, providing the strongest evidence ever on the phenomenon from galaxy surveys, said Zhao Gongbo with the NAOC, one of the researchers.
Dark energy is believed to drive the accelerating expansion of the universe. With a better understanding of it, mankind will have a better sense of the past and future evolution of the universe.
The eBOSS collaboration, which consists of over 30 top research institutes on astronomy around the world, including the NAOC, was formed for tackling the problem of dark energy.
