The first year of Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) data seems to show that dark energy is weakening over time, possibly the biggest cosmological...
An illustration of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) year-one data, showing a slice of the larger 3D map that DESI is constructing during its five-year survey. The current "standard model" of the cosmos, its history, and its evolution is called the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model — but the supremacy of this model, in which lambda represents the cosmological constant and dark energy, may now be under serious threat. In short, that is because new observations of the cosmos have suggested that dark energy, the force causing our universe to expand faster and faster, seems to be weakening. That may not sound like much in and of itself, but this finding actually has the potential to cause the first major paradigm shift in cosmology since the discovery of the accelerated expansion of the universe just over 25 years ago. It could even suggest out universe won't end in a "Big Rip," or a "Big Chill," but rather a "Big Crunch." More on that shortly, first, let's dive into these fascinating results. Related: Largest 3D map of our universe could hint that dark energy evolves with time The new clues about dark energy evolving came as part of one of the deepest maps of the cosmos ever created, built using the first year of data collected by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). The instrument's 5,000 robotic eyes collect light from millions of galaxies across over a third of the entire sky as we see it from Earth. This light is then broken down into a spectrum of colors, allowing scientists to measure the expansion of the universe over billions of years by measuring a change in light wavelength called "redshift." Collected over no more than a fifth of DESI's mission operating time, data gleaned with the survey already promises major shake-ups and has cosmologists excited about what comes next. "The release of these results was a great day for cosmology, pointing to a 'decreasing' effect of the dark energy over time, meaning it is evolving and,…