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Marilyn Head

'Dark energy', which researchers have spent decades trying to fathom, isn't necessary to explain our universe after all, according to a new solution to Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Once the uneven distribution of matter is taken into account, we don't need dark energy to explain the accelerated expansion of the universe, say researchers

This challenges the notion that dark energy makes up 76% of our universe, as many cosmologists believe.

Research by Dr David Wiltshire, from New Zealand's University of Canterbury, accounts for recent observations of the distribution of matter in the universe, observations that hadn't been made in Einstein's time.

Wiltshire's paper, published this week in the journal Physical Review Letters, focuses on the lumpy distribution of matter in the universe as it evolved, rather than a smooth distribution that Einstein assumed

"The early solutions

assumed a very simple structure where the universe is

evolving the same way in all directions,"