2023-07-05 16:19:56
Carole Mundell, Scientific Director of the European Space Agency (ESA). ESA
British astrophysicist Carole Mundell, 53, has been the new director of science at the European Space Agency (ESA) since March. As such, she attended her first two space mission launches: the Juice probe, on April 14, went to observe three of Jupiter’s largest satellites, and the Euclid satellite, which took off on July 1 from Cape Canaveral (Florida). ) in an attempt to unravel the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.
As an astrophysicist, what do you expect from Euclid?
I expect a breakthrough in modern physics. We understand ordinary matter quite well, which accounts for 5% of the content of the Universe. But with dark matter and dark energy, 95% of our Universe remains a mystery to us… and it’s amazing! We will use Euclid’s data to try to understand the nature of this dark matter, the nature of this dark energy and why the Universe is expanding at an accelerated rate, which is what we observe in the experimental data. However, this is not what we expect from Einstein’s theory of general relativity and, for the moment, we do not know the cause.
Does this mean that cosmology has a problem?
Science works in the following way: the different theories provide us with testable predictions. Then we develop the technology needed to perform measurements. Finally, we analyze these data and compare them with the predictions. Euclid’s observations will allow us to constrain existing theories and we will know which part we are right about and which part we need to work on more.
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To put the question another way, is it possible that the theory of gravitation is wrong?
Much of the theory is correct. Thus, if we consider Einstein’s equation for general relativity, three predictions derived from it, made in the 20th century, have been verified. One of them predicted that the Universe was expanding, which was confirmed by the detection of the cosmic microwave background by Penzias and Wilson in the 1960s. The second prediction said that black holes must exist in nature and experiments have found their gravitational effect, there is no longer any debate. The third prediction is that of gravitational waves, which has also been confirmed experimentally. So I think Einstein’s theory is incredibly powerful.
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