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Question about dark energy
Trying to understand some concepts about dark energy in layman's terms.
From what I've read and seen, dark energy is responsible for the expansion of the universe and cosmic inflation. From what's been asked before, far away objects (that are not graviationally bound) expand faster than objects closer to us. The space between these objects may expand faster than light, as opposed to the objects themselves moving away from each other faster than light.
So my questions are:
- Is dark energy really strong, or really weak? Or neither? Because I still have a hard time conceptualizing the force to move galaxies and clusters away from each other. On one hand, simply making more empty space doesn't seem like it takes much energy because space is pretty empty. But on the other hand, these forces are acting on massive objects?
- Is dark energy supposed to be equal everywhere? Going back to expansion, far away objects are moving away faster. Doesn't that imply more dark energy in those regions? But if I were in the faraway region and observing Earth, wouldn't the expansion where I am seem slower such that there's less dark energy locally?
Thanks!
Edit: Thanks for the responses. So informative and I'm learning a lot.
u/munchanything — 14 hours ago