"Dark energy is a misidentification of variations in the kinetic energy of expansion, which is not uniform in a Universe as lumpy as the one we actually live in," says David Wiltshire, a physicist at the University of Canterbury.

Dark energy does not exist, some scientists have claimed – which could help get rid of one of the universe’s biggest mysteries. For a century, scientists have thought that the universe was expanding in all directions.

Scientists are challenging the existence of dark energy with a new model called "timescape," which suggests the Universe's expansion might be influenced by its uneven structure rather than an invisible force.