Universe Expansion Accelerating

So I mentioned I would get back to this topic, and so I have simply put, the universe is expanding at an increasing rate. This discovery gave the nobel prize to Saul Perlmutter and his team of researchers, as well as Adam Reiss and Brian Schmidt and their team of researchers. These two groups were able to detect the rate of expansion of the universe using supernovae. They were able to take type Ia supernovae and due to the redshift of the light detected were able to calculate the velocity of the supernovae going away from us. After getting velocities of various supernovae at various distances they were able to conclude that the ones closer to us, and thus not as far back in time, were moving faster. This discovery is what first gave rise to Dark Energy, as there had to be a source for this increasing universe expansion, and was concluded that some "Dark Energy" in empty space was repelling matter like anti-gravity, and causing the velocity to increase as they got farther apart.

The picture above courtesy of NASA is a good representation of how this works.

Thus Dark Energy was discovered to explain the findings of the acceleration of the universe expansion. These measurements combined with the "standard model" of big bang cosmology, or known as the Lambda-Cold Dark Matter model (ΛCDM), gives the amount of Dark Energy that should be in the universe to cause this expansion acceleration based on the amount of Dark Matter and normal matter in the universe. This number sits at approximately 70% as I previously posted about, the expansion rate acceleration that is currently calculated is much more accurate then they first discovered sitting at 73.8 kilometers per second per megaparsec. It means that for every million parsecs of distance from us, the rate of expansion increases by that amount. This newly found acceleration changes the theory on how the universe would end, which used to be what was termed as a "big crunch" where the universe collapses in on itself. Now it is theorized it will continue to expand, and in some theories it will accelerate until all matter is ripped apart due to the repulsion effect of the Dark Matter causing what's coined as the "Big Rip". However, since almost nothing is known on Dark Matter, it is unsure how things will continue with the universe, for now the universe expansion is accelerating, and we will continue to study and find out the mysteries that remain.