"By observing the brightness of distant dying stars, astronomers have long come to believe that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. In fact, that apparent reality is deeply built into cosmological models: a mysterious force that influences the universe on the largest scales, dubbed dark energy, is believed to explain the acceleration. However, not everybody agrees with this widely accepted scientific consensus."
"In a controversial new paper, published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a team led by Yonsei University astronomer Young-Wook Lee argues that once we take into consideration the age of these dying stars, the expansion"
"For decades, scientists have posited that type Ia supernovae, which result from white dwarf stars exploding in a binary system, can stand in as "standard candles" to allow us to measure the cosmos. That's because scientists believe they are all equally bright. By using the inverse-square law, scientists have measured the distance to these exploded remnants, resulting in the consensus that the universe's expansion is accelerating."
Observations of type Ia supernovae have yielded distance estimates that imply cosmic expansion is accelerating, a phenomenon attributed to dark energy on the largest scales. The standard-candle assumption treats these explosions as equally bright, enabling inverse-square–law distance measurements that support acceleration. An alternative analysis that accounts for the ages of individual supernovae finds that the apparent acceleration vanishes when age is considered. That analysis indicates expansion began to decelerate about 1.5 billion years ago and could reverse in the future, potentially producing a big crunch and altering expectations about cosmic fate.
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