THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO'S long-awaited South Pole Telescope just went
on-line in Antarctica and scientists will soon start using it to study one of
the biggest of cosmic mysteries-dark energy, the antigravity force that seems
to be driving the universe apart at an ever-faster rate. Astronomers have long
known that the universe is expanding, attributing it to the Big Bang, but in
the late '90s, they discovered the process is unexpectedly speeding up, which
led them to theorize that a dark form of energy is overwhelming the gravity
force that holds the universe together. The $19.2-million, 70-foot telescope
can take snapshots of the microwave background radiation left over from the
Big Bang, and by studying it at various cosmic distances, determine if dark
energy really exists and when it began to make galaxies start hitting the gas.
