Washington D.C. - In the 18 December 1998 issue, the editors of Science will announce their picks for the year's ten most important advances in science research. Heading the list is the accelerating universe, the discovery that galaxies of the cosmos are flying apart at ever faster speeds. Each year Science selects those advances from the past twelve months that have profoundly changed the practice or interpretation of science or its implications for society.
In the top research advance of 1998, the accelerating universe, two international teams of astronomers provided a glimpse into the destiny of the universe when they looked at distant stars and found that they were rushing apart at an accelerating rate. Scientists discovered decades ago that the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang. But whether the gravitational pull between galaxies could slow-and ultimately reverse-that expansion has been unknown. This year's discovery showed that the expansion of the universe is in fact speeding up. This implies that gravity is no match for the force that is pushing the universe outwards in all directions and that the expansion may continue, perhaps indefinitely.
The force propelling the expansion is still a mystery, but a leading candidate is a mysterious and pervasive energy in the universe called the cosmological constant - which Albert Einstein conceived of but later deemed his "biggest blunder." This year's top research advance may validate Einstein's first instincts; the energy of the cosmological constant could be providing the repulsive force necessary to propel the increasingly rapid expansion of the universe.
As the world's leading peer-reviewed general science journal, Science is uniquely suited to draw from a diverse array of scientific fields in order to compile the most authoritative list of the year's scientific accomplishments.
The other advances are as follows. Except for the first runner up, all other
runners up are in
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Contact: Gabriel Paal
gpaal@aaas.org
202-326-6421
American Association for the Advancement of Science
18-Dec-1998