Nobel Prize in Physics goes to expanding-universe researchers

via gizmag.com

For almost a hundred years, it has been widely accepted that the Universe is expanding, and that it's been doing so ever since the Big Bang occurred approximately 14 billion years ago. It was initially assumed that the rate of expansion was slowly declining. What came as a surprise to many scientists, however, was the relatively recent announcement that the rate is in fact increasing. That was the remarkable conclusion reached by three physicists located in two countries, and it has just earned them the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2011.