I think that the "Accelerating Universe" is the most exciting thing which has happened in Astronomy/Astrophysics/Cosmology -- at least in my own lifetime! The "Standard Candles" for this study were Type 1a Supernovae, which are thought to be white dwarf stars accreting mass from a companion (bloated) star. It is thought that when the white dwarf star accretes 1.44 Solar Masses (the Chandrasekhar Limit), the white dwarf star explodes violently in a Type 1a Supernova and becomes a "standard candle" because of its uniformity to other Type 1a Supernovae observed. The folks who originally began this study were attempting to find out how fast the universe was DECELERATING. They did not believe their data when the opposite result (ACCELERATION) was the obvious (and seemingly only) conclusion. As I remember it, the paper was printed in NATURE on January 1, 1998 (Perlmutter, et al.) and another paper by the HI-Z SN Search Team confirmed the results. This became the 'Discovery of the Year" in 1998 in SCIENCE.
Here there are observations which completely changed the knowledge of the Universe. I think that there is enough evidence to show that these astrophysicists/cosmologists are on the right track.
I have no problem with the Accelerating Universe. Whee!
ljbrs =D>
