Big Bang Theory: The latest science and discoveries

Dark energy, the mysterious force apparently driving the accelerating expansion of the universe, is spread uniformly across space and time, new observations of massive galaxy clusters suggest.

A faraway proto-galaxy has been observed feeding on recycled material, shedding more light on how galaxies sustain star birth across eons.

Astronomers have found the fingerprints of material dispersed by the supernova deaths of the universe's first stars in distant gas clouds.

The mapping of matter in the cosmos helps to confirm Einstein's theory of general relativity and reveals more about mysterious dark matter.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope looked at the same distant patch of sky that Hubble did, revealing yet more detail in the famous Ultra Deep Field.

Cosmologists have a problem: Their measurements of the rate of expansion of the universe don't agree. And a new, highly accurate measurement of variable stars could deepen this 'Hubble trouble.'

The James Webb Space Telescope's ability to study the early universe has been solidified by the confirmation that it has imaged four galaxies as they were just 350 million years after the Big Bang.

The universe may be flat, but could still be shaped like a doughnut, weird patterns in leftover light from the Big Bang suggest.

The early universe may have been such a violent place that space-time itself fractured like a pane of glass, releasing gravitational waves that astronomers say we may have already detected.

Scientists have proposed a way that the universe could stop expanding, ending in a 'Big Crunch' that resets space and time as we know it.