Invisible
Space-time
Schmidt and Perlmutter
compared the brightness of distant
(ancient) type 1A supernovae with
closer ones, which supposedly gave them a distance scale. Then they
compared this to the
object's red shift, which supposedly is a measure of how fast the
galaxies are moving away.
Since the two "measurements" did not agree, they proposed that the
stretching of space is
accelerating. Dark energy is allegedly causing the vacuum of space to
accelerate its stretching.
Scientists propose three kinds of dark energy: quintessence, vacuum
energy and phantom energy. (Quintessence is the Greek name for the
invisible stuff breathed by the planet gods.) Vacuum
energy and phantom energy are self-explanatory. Scientists had already
populated the universe
with invisible space-time, black holes, cosmological expansion and
invisible
matter. Adding another invisible thing required adjustments. Which
invisible thing has the most
influence over the universe? The
visible stars and galaxies may
constitute as little as 0.4 % of the
universe - according to some cosmologists. Cosmologists believe that
invisible dark energy is
about three times as powerful as invisible dark matter.