The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality

by Richard Panek

astronomy itself was changing. The traditional go-it-alone aesthetic was disappearing. The diversity of the science and the complications of technology were forcing the field into greater and greater specialization. You couldn’t just study the heavens anymore; you studied planets, or stars, or galaxies, or the Sun. But you didn’t study just stars anymore, either; you studied only the stars that explode. And you didn’t study just supernovae; you studied only one type. And you didn’t study just Type Ia; you specialized in the mechanism leading to the thermonuclear explosion, or you specialized in what metals the explosion creates, or you specialized in how to use the light from the explosion to measure the deceleration of the expansion of the universe—how to perform the photometry or do the spectroscopy or write the code. A collaboration could easily become unwieldy.