Big-Bang Effect Widening Universe, Team Theorizes
'Dark matter' isn't necessary to explain the accelerating expansion, some physicists say.
From Reuters
A group of physicists is battling what it considers the cosmological equivalent of the boogeyman: an enormous dark force, which nobody has ever seen, driving galaxies apart.
Conventional wisdom holds that a theoretical "dark energy" makes up some 70% of the universe, and could be the determining factor in whether the universe is destroyed billions of years from now. But Italian and American cosmologists have another explanation for the accelerating expansion of the universe: They say the expansion is an overlooked aftereffect of the Big Bang, which brought about the universe.
"No mysterious dark energy is required," said Antonio Riotto at Italy's National Nuclear Physics Institute in Padova.
Since the late 1990s, scientists have used dark energy to explain an apparent antigravity force pushing galaxies away from each other at an accelerating rate.
And they have employed a variety of theories — such as new dimensions — to justify their belief in the existence of dark energy....
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-darkenergy26mar26,0,3109167.story?coll=la-home-science