Beyond Einstein? It nearly didn’t get beyond mission control. Facing cutbacks, NASA has picked dark energy as the subject of the first of its due to begin in 2009.
Forced to choose between several missions, including an observatory for studying gravity waves, and the Black Hole Finder probe, the agency asked the US National Research Council for recommendations. The winner, the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM), will study the force thought to be accelerating the expansion of the universe. NASA will now select between one of three competing JDEM designs.
“We were worried that things had slowed down in all the sciences [at…
