Starship Asterisk*

A University of Geneva researcher has recently shown that the accelerating expansion of the universe and the movement of the stars in the galaxies can be explained without drawing on the concepts of dark matter and dark energy… which might not actually exist.

For close on a century, researchers have hypothesised that the universe contains more matter than can be directly observed, known as “dark matter.” They have also posited the existence of a “dark energy” that is more powerful than gravitational attraction. These two hypotheses, it has been argued, account for the movement of stars in galaxies and for the accelerating expansion of the universe respectively. But -- according to a researcher at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland -- these concepts may be no longer valid: the phenomena they are supposed to describe can be demonstrated without them. This research, which is published in The Astrophysical Journal, exploits a new theoretical model based on the scale invariance of the empty space, potentially solving two of astronomy’s greatest mysteries. ...

• Astrophysical Journal 849(2):158 (2017 Nov 10) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aa92cc
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1710.11425 > 31 Oct 2017

• Astrophysical Journal 847(1):65 (2017 Sep 20) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aa88cf
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1708.08648 > 29 Aug 2017

• Astrophysical Journal 834(2):194 (2017 Jan 10) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/834/2/194
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1701.03964 > 14 Jan 2017