Science Has All The Answers ... except ...

[sear]

In previous millennia the criterion of truth might have been the ruling of the tribal leader, the shaman, or the king.
In the 3rd millennium the criterion of truth is science. BUT !!

There are mysteries today as yet unsolved. We've known for generations the cosmos is expanding. But it was so widely assumed / believed that gravitational braking would slow cosmic expansion that for decades no one checked.

Someone checked.

Turns out the rate of cosmic expansion is increasing, not decreasing. No one knows why, or how.
As is often the case, our terrestrial familiarity with Newtonian physics, including Sir Isaac Newton's 3 laws of motion have tenuous relevance to relativistic astrophysics.
None the less neither Newton nor Einstein explains this accelerating cosmic expansion. It violates Newton's First Law *.

Any idea what natural cosmic force powers this acceleration?
Any other as yet unanswered questions, mysteries of the natural world?

* ref:

New·ton's first law (ntnz, nyt-) n. The principle stating that a body at rest will remain at rest, and a body in motion will remain in motion with a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force. Also called law of inertia. [After Isaac Newton.] The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.

 

[Borg Refinery]

Just looked up this and found this:

As reported in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers using the veteran space telescope have estimated that the expansion rate of the Universe is 73 kilometers per second per megaparsec plus or minus 1. That means that if you look at an object 1 million parsecs (3.26 million light-years) away, the expansion of the universe would make it look like it is moving away from you at 73 kilometers per second (over 163,000 miles per hour).

 

[Shiftless2]

No one knows why, or how. Yet

I fixed your statement.

 

[sear]

BR #2:

- alright -
That seems to be a calculation of the rate of expansion. BUT !!
a) It looks to me like a rate of speed, not a rate of acceleration. The latter is expressed in such units as "per second per second".

b) If it was water, and expanding at such rate, we would ABSOLUTELY expect the expanding water volume to carry with it objects suspended within it, via a process called "viscous entrainment". BUT !!

c) In the void of intergalactic space, where pressure is measured in "mean free-path", there is no viscous entrainment. So independent of what the vacuum is doing, why are the objects within it growing apart?

"No one knows why, or how." s #1

"No one knows why, or how. Yet
I fixed your statement." S2

That's redundant. That's redundant.