Radio Sky Will Tell Us About Dark Energy express

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The Universe is expanding, and galaxies are flying apart like raisins in rising dough. But since the late 1990s, we've known that this expansion is accelerating. What force is pushing galaxies apart faster and faster is one of physics' greatest mysteries. It's called dark energy, and it makes up about 70% of everything in the cosmos.

The BINGO radio telescope in Brazil will hunt for clues in the distribution of hydrogen — the most abundant element in the Universe. Hydrogen emits radio waves at a wavelength of 21 centimeters, and by measuring their shift, scientists can infer the distance to gas clouds. This way, they'll build a three-dimensional map of the Universe's large-scale structure — a giant web of galaxies and voids.

The authors of the new study simulated how BINGO would see these oscillations, accounting for interference from our Galaxy and receiver noise. They found that adding the telescope's data to Planck satellite measurements narrows the allowed range of cosmological parameters by about 60% compared to Planck alone. It's like swapping a tailor's tape for a laser rangefinder: same measurements, but far greater precision.

This approach will not only refine the parameters of the Universe but also track how the amount of hydrogen has changed over the past billions of years. And crucially, it will help us better understand how dark energy behaves: whether it's constant, like Einstein's cosmological constant, or whether its properties have changed over time.