Sent to you by Sean McBride via Google Reader: Do We Live in a Giant Cosmic Bubble? via KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News on 10/1/08 Earth may be trapped in an abnormal bubble of space-time that is particularly void of matter, which could account for the apparent acceleration of the universe's expansion, not dark energy. Matter warps space-time. Light travelling from supernovae outside our bubble would appear dimmer, because the light would diverge more than we would expect once it got inside our void. Oxford researchers Pedro G. Ferreira and Kate Land say that the upcoming Joint Dark Energy Mission, planned by NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy to launch in 2014 or 2015, may be able to distinguish between dark energy and the void. The satellite aims to measure the expansion of the universe precisely by observing about 2,300 supernovae. They suggest that by looking at a large number of supernovae in a certain region of the universe, they should be able to tell whether the objects are really accelerating away, or if their light is merely being distorted in a void. (Source: http://www.livescience.com/space/080930-st-universe-void.html) Things you can do from here: - Subscribe to KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News using Google Reader - Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites
