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Cosmology

Hydrogen wisps reveal dark energy

Nature volume 498, pages 179–180 (2013)Cite this article

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Traces of hydrogen gas, detected over vast regions of space, have for the first time been used as a standard ruler to measure dark energy — the unknown cosmic energy that is causing the Universe's expansion to speed up.

Writing in Astronomy & Astrophysics and the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) collaboration reports1,2 on how it has used observations of cosmic hydrogen gas to determine the expansion rate of the Universe back before the epoch of acceleration began.

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Figure 1: Useful shadows.

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  1. Tamara M. Davis is in the School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia.,

    Tamara M. Davis

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  1. Tamara M. Davis
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Correspondence to Tamara M. Davis.

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Davis, T. Hydrogen wisps reveal dark energy. Nature 498, 179–180 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/498179a

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