A massive survey of distant galaxies should help unravel a mind-bending cosmic mystery: Why has the expansion of the universe sped up?
The goal of the new project, called BigBOSS, is to develop a cosmic yardstick to accurately measure the universe's expansion, which seems to be getting a boost from an anti-gravity force known as dark energy.
"It is a complete mystery what is going on with dark energy. It was completely unexpected," physicist Michael Levi of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory told Discovery News.
Dark energy, which was discovered in 1998, is not directly detectable, but scientists can track its footsteps through history. It is believed to have sprung into action about 8 billion years after the universe's creation, when the cosmos reversed course and started accelerating.
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