Standard candle' flickers too brightly

"An international team of researchers has measured the mass of a distant exploding star system – and found that it weighs considerably more than the accepted mass limit for such bodies. As these type 1a supernovae are widely used as "standard candles" to measure distances in the universe, the finding could have important consequences in cosmology, particularly concerning theories of dark energy. ... Even though Scalzo's result indicates that not all type 1a supernovae are as neat and tidy as previously thought, dark energy is probably still safe, because there is still further evidence that it exists. "There is other observational evidence from the cosmic microwave background and galaxy surveys. Take any one of these away and dark energy still exists," says Malcolm Fairbairn, a particle astrophysicist at King's College London, who was not involved in the research. "However, it has been very worrying that we rely on type 1a supernovae as standard candles but we don't really know exactly what they are," he adds."

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