Originally posted by sonhouse
But they are expanding the data points so in a few years the expansion may go away completely.
True, but it hasn't yet gone away. Its not as if they have suddenly found evidence that there isn't any acceleration. Instead, they have found less evidence that there is. They have gone from being say 99.99999% certain to only 99.9% certain.
Of course given that it is all based on only one particular observation (by which I mean a particular type of observation), one should not put overmuch faith in it.
I wonder if there is going to be analysis that shows it all bogus when they factor in the new galaxies found, they think up to a trillion galaxies now not the couple hundred billion they thought were there before. That has to upset the ordinary matter V dark matter ratio. Maybe.
As always, you should always qualify such figures with 'observable universe' an not treat that figure as a total in the whole universe. It amazes me how often people get that wrong.
I also note that that figure is not based on actual observation, but a mathematical model that probably still needs to be verified, double-checked and in a few years may turn out to be only 2 sigma. 🙂