Posted: Wed, Jul 18, 2007, 8:01 AM ET (1201 GMT)
A group of astronomers who discovered evidence for the existence of a mysterious "dark energy" that is causing the universe's expansion to accelerate have won a major prize. The Gruber Foundation announced Tuesday that two teams of astronomers, the Supernova Cosmology Project and the High-z Supernova Search Team, will share the $500,000 2007 Gruber Cosmology Prize. The two teams independently found evidence for dark energy by measuring the redshifts of distant supernovae, finding that the expansion of the universe, previously thought to be slowing since the Big Bang, was instead accelerating. The exact nature of dark energy remains a mystery.

Related Links:

•  Physics Web article
•  Univ. of California Berkeley press release
•  Johns Hopkins University press release
•  Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics press release
•  Gruber Foundation press release