What is Dark Energy Up to? The Rebbutal!
In January 2026, we published an article; "What's dark energy up to"?
The article discussed research from Yonsei university in South Korea that re-examined how astronomers had measured cosmic distances using type 1a supernovae as standard candles.
The brightness of a Type1a supernova falls off as the square of the distance. So, if you double the distance, the brightness falls off by a quarter. By comparing the measured brightness to the standard, you can determine distance to the 1a.
The Koreans claimed that their "improved" methods, suggest that these supernovae may not all shine with exactly the same brightness. Instead, their brightness may also depend on the age of the galaxy in which they occur.
What the New Yonsei University Research Suggested
This led to the conclusion that earlier measurements made in the 1990s, may need small corrections, which cast a shadow on the data used to show that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
If supernova brightness depends on the age of the host galaxy, then distance estimates must be adjusted. When this correction is applied, the results may suggest that:
The density of dark energy is not constant after all, but may even be decreasing.
The 2026 Rebuttal of the Korean Research
In June of 2026, the university of Southampton in the UK, published a major rebuttal of the Korean research.
The paper included two Nobel laureates, Adam Riess and Brian Schmidt, who won the 2011 Nobel prize in physics for discovering that the universe's expansion is accelerating. The rebuttal, led by Dr Phil Wiseman, concluded that the Yonsei team's results were the product of analytical errors and a misunderstanding of the supernova data.
The Rebuttal: The Southampton university team confirmed that standard measurements, supporting the accelerating expansion of the universe and the existence of dark energy, remain robust.
The Counter Claim: The Yonsei University team has publicly stated that they stand by their findings and maintain that subsequent analysis supports their position.
If you would like more detail on the rebuttal, the Royal Astronomical Society has an article entitled; "Crisis averted as experts confirm universe expansion IS accelerating". You can get to this article by typing "royal astronomical society crisis averted" into Google.
However, the big question remains; Why is the expansion of the universe accelerating?
The Vera Rubin Observatory LSST Project
The NSF-DOE (National Science Foundation - U.S. Department of Energy) Vera Rubin observatory, has officially started a Legacy Survey of Space and Time, known as "LSST".
Using the world's largest digital camera, a staggering 3.2 Giga Pixels, which is the size of a small car, the observatory has started a 10 year survey. The telescope rapidly scans and records the entire southern sky every few nights and can spot moving and exploding objects such as asteroids, comets and supernovae. The observatory can issue public alerts within minutes of discovering an object of interest.
Over its 10 year life-span, this project will catalogue about 17 billion stars and something like 20 billion galaxies, as well as a host of other objects of interest.
This ground-breaking project will allow astronomers to address cosmological anomalies, including the Yonsei university claim, using an unprecedented volume of collected data. The current debate (Southampton university versus Yonsei university) relies on a few thousand Type 1a events. The Vera Rubin observatory is expected to discover and catalogue hundreds of thousand of supernovae over the ten year period. This volume of data should eliminate any limitations in the current catalogue and possibly, even fuel alternative theories.
The survey will not rely on supernovae alone, it will also map the shapes and distributions of billions of galaxies.
The first major release of LSST is expected late next year. Even this volume of data will be formidable in terms of delving into the mysteries of dark energy.
If you want more detail about this ground-breaking project that may allow astronomers to get to the bottom of so many mysteries and anomalies, head for the Vera Rubin Observatory, using Google. It's a fascinating capability.
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© 2026 Kieron Conway - All rights reserved.
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