Scientists create huge 3-D map of universe, validating Einstein's theories

Hundreds of scientists worked together to map out one-quarter of the sky – and they weren't just plotting landmarks for a road trip to Alpha Centauri.

Through painstaking, complex measurements that reached into the earliest chapters of the universe, they charted a 3-D model of 650 billion cubic light years of space that included 1.2 million galaxies. It was created with an important goal – to measure dark energy.

When scientists recently discovered that the expansion of the universe was accelerating, dark energy was suggested as the “anti-gravity” force responsible for it, perhaps even as the “cosmological constant” that Einstein envisioned. Another theory argued that gravity itself was breaking down – not particularly encouraging in a universe thought to be ruled by its laws.

Results from this massive project, however, have affirmed the laws of gravity and general relativity on a universal level, providing evidence that dark energy is indeed responsible for the accelerated expansion of the universe. The research indicated that this energy is consistent with Albert Einstein’s suggestion of Lambda, a cosmological constant that is a repellent force countering attraction between matter....
http://m.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0715/Scientists-create-huge-3-D-map-of-universe-validating-Einstein-s-theories