Betcha didn’t know, Bo. But ya should, Hollywood.
Einstein’s cosmological constant, once relegated to the status of a historical artifact, has reemerged in the form of “dark energy” as a significant dynamical element in the cosmos. The long-standing question of the geometry of the universe has apparently been answered by data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe: the universe is flat. The matter content of the universe is around 30% of the critical value, with the balance supplied by the dark energy. Only a fraction of the matter is composed of baryons. Although the nature of this unknown dark matter remains elusive, new experimental results have ruled out the neutrino, while at the same time establishing that the neutrino does possess a small nonzero rest mass. Extensive new galaxy [redshift] surveys are providing new data on large-scale clustering that are essentially in agreement with the new consensus.
Hawley, John, and Katherine A. Holcomb. Foundations of Modern Cosmology. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
People, please. Know your Universe. It is your birthright. You owe it to yourselves to cleanse your minds of provincial thinking and a daily focus on such inconsequential and ill-patterning matters. Acquire a greater understanding of the larger-scale movements, forces, motions of which you a part; use these lessons and pattern them via meaning to your own life, your own thinking. Our experiences within acts of balance, harmony, creation, life, and death are evidence of our citizenship in a Universe that behaves the same way. Our experiences in art, love, joy & sorrow, and learning define us, as humans, and testify to our specialness and value.
Don’t be so afraid to learn or to approach that which you are entitled to see and absorb. Go for it - you’re curious.