New survey casts doubt on supernova evidence for Dark Energy

Now, a team of scientists led by Professor Subir Sarkar of Oxford University’s Department of Physics has cast doubt on this standard cosmological concept. Making use of a vastly increased data set — a catalogue of 740 Type Ia supernovae, more than ten times the original sample size — the researchers have found that the evidence for acceleration may be flimsier than previously thought, with the data being consistent with a constant rate of expansion.

“However, there now exists a much bigger database of supernovae on which to perform rigorous and detailed statistical analyses. We analysed the latest catalogue of 740 Type Ia supernovae — over ten times bigger than the original samples on which the discovery claim was based — and found that the evidence for accelerated expansion is, at most, what physicists call ‘3 sigma’. This is far short of the 5 sigma standard required to claim a discovery of fundamental significance.

https://astronomynow.com/2016/10/21/...rate-or-is-it/