Researchers from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), including many members of the University of Portsmouth Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, today announced that they have measured the distances to galaxies more than six billion light-years away to an unprecedented accuracy of just one percent. Their measurements place new constraints on the properties of the mysterious “dark energy” thought to permeate empty space, which causes the expansion of the Universe to accelerate.

A summary written by the University of Portsmouth’s press team (in coordination with ICG researcher Angela Burden) can found here and the SDSS-III BOSS press release can be found here.

The exciting news has been picked up by many outlets, including the BBC, the Independent, the Daily Mail, and Yahoo!.