The accelerating universe is the observation that the universe appears to be expanding at an increasing rate. In formal terms, this means that the cosmic scale factor has a positive second derivative, so that the velocity at which a distant galaxy is receding from us should be continuously increasing with time. In 1998, observations of type Ia supernovae also suggested that the expansion of the universe has been accelerating since around redshift of z~0.5. The 2006 Shaw Prize in Astronomy and the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics were both awarded to Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt, and Adam G. Riess for the 1998 discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae.
Read more about Accelerating Universe: Corroboration, Explanatory Models, Theories For The Consequences To The Universe
Famous quotes containing the words accelerating and/or universe:
“Much is made of the accelerating brutality of young people’s crimes, but rarely does our concern for dangerous children translate into concern for children in danger. We fail to make the connection between the use of force on children themselves, and violent antisocial behavior, or the connection between watching father batter mother and the child deducing a link between violence and masculinity.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“Imagination places the future world for us either above or below or in reincarnation. We dream of travels throughout the universe: is not the universe within us? We do not know the depths of our spirit. M The mysterious path leads within. In us, or nowhere, lies eternity with its worlds, the past and the future.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (1772–1801)