1. Meanwhile, searches for dark matter are dramatically improving in sensitivity, and gamma rays from dark matter annihilation at the galactic center may have been detected by H.E.S.S. (Joel R. Primack, arXiv:astro-ph/0408359)

2. We now know that everything that we can see makes up only about half a percent of the cosmic density, and that most of the universe is made of invisible stuff called "dark matter" and "dark energy". (Joel R. Primack, arXiv:astro-ph/0408359)

3. Of course, there are a number of areas in which cosmological theory and observations are not in obvious agreement. The space available does not permit an exhaustive review... (Joel R. Primack, arXiv:astro-ph/0408359)

4. Despite its success at large scales, the model exhibits certain difficulties at sub-galactic scales. In particular, high resolution N-body simulations of dark halos show cuspy density profiles which contradict observations from low surface brightness galaxies and dwarfs which indicate flatter density profiles. In addition, CDM also predicts too many small subhalos within simulated larger systems, in contradiction with observations of the number of satellite galaxies in the Local Group. In any case a spatially flat Universe with cosmological constant and cold dark matter (Lambda CDM) is generally accepted at present as the Standard Model in Cosmology. (Antonio L. Maroto and Juan Ramírez, arXiv:astro-ph/0409280)

5. Vanilla or not? (...) It is noteworthy that the substantial improvements (most recently [104]) in dark energy measurements since the first discovery [105, 106] have revealed no departure whatsoever from ``vanilla'' [107]. (Max Tegmark, arXiv:astro-ph/0410281)

6. The cosmological tests are tight enough now to show that the Friedmann-Lemaitre Lambda CDM cosmological model almost certainly is a useful approximation. This means general relativity theory passes significant tests of the extrapolation of some fifteen orders of magnitude from the length scales of the precision tests of gravity physics. (P.J.E. Peebles, arXiv:astro-ph/0410284)

7. In summary, something like 80 percent of the baryons at present have either been detected or are plausibly present with detection being imminent. (Joseph Silk, arXiv:astro-ph/0412297)

8. Baryon dark matter will most likely be mapped out within five years. (Joseph Silk, arXiv:astro-ph/0412297)

9. The `modern' interest in the cosmological constant stems from its interpretation as a vacuum energy. This leads to the reverse problem: Why is lambda at least 120 powers of 10 smaller than its `natural' value, even though the effective vacuum density must have been very high in order to drive inflation. (Martin J. Rees, arXiv:astro-ph/0402045)

10. Cosmologists can now proclaim with confidence (but with some surprise too) that, in round numbers, our universe consists of 5% baryons, 25% dark matter, and 70% dark energy. It is indeed embarrassing that 95% of the universe is unaccounted for: even the dark matter is of quite uncertain nature, and the dark energy is a complete mystery. (Martin J. Rees, arXiv:astro-ph/0402045)

11. Dealing with dark energy (Eric V. Linder, arXiv:astro-ph/0501057)

12. Thinking about the cosmological constant lambda as arising from the vacuum expectation value of a quantum zeropoint energy "sea", one can calculate that the sea level should drown the matter energy density (the "land") by a factor 10¹²⁰ or so. Furthermore, ... (Eric V. Linder, arXiv:astro-ph/0501057)

13. Furthermore, the supernova light comes from simple, clean nuclear physics and has a direct translation to the expansion history a(t): with the luminosity calibrated, the flux measures the distance through the cosmological inverse square law, and hence the lookback time t, and the redshift z = a^-1 - 1 measures the scale factor. (Eric V. Linder, arXiv:astro-ph/0501057)

14. The universe is mysteriously unsimple. (Eric V. Linder, arXiv:astro-ph/0501057)

15. This analysis suggests an explanation to the traditional cosmological constant problem: the value of rho_Pl/rho_vac is so large because there is a huge quantity N_g of massive gravitons in the observable universe, with m_g ~ Lambda^1/2. (M. Novello, arXiv:astro-ph/0504505)

16. Curved Space or Curved Vacuum? (Eric V. Linder, arXiv:astro-ph/0508333v3)

17. Agreement on the age of the Universe provides an important consistency check as well as confirmation of a key feature of dark energy, its large negative pressure. (Michael S. Turner and Dragan Huterer, arXiv:0706.2186v2 [astro-ph])

18. Observations to date have established the existence of dark energy and have begun to probe its nature; e.g., by constraining ω ≈ -1 ± 0.1. (Michael S. Turner and Dragan Huterer, arXiv:0706.2186v2 [astro-ph])

19. Darwin taught us that we are animals, Freud taught us that we are irrational, machines now outpower us, and just last year, Deep Fritz outsmarted our Chess champion Vladimir Kramnik. Adding insult to injury, cosmologists have found that we are not even made out of the majority substance. (Max Tegmark, arXiv:0704.0646v2 [gr-qc])

20. So to truly advance our knowledge of the nature of dark energy we must obtain better data, with next generation experiments. (Eric V. Linder, arXiv:0810.1754v1 [astro-ph])

21. The network of cosmological tests is tight enough now to show that the relativistic Big Bang cosmology is a good approximation to what happened as the universe expanded and cooled through light element production and evolved to the present. (P.J.E. Peebles, arXiv:1203.6334v1 [astro-ph.CO])

^* For more short comments on modern cosmology check at the following address: www.fisica.ufmg.br/~dsoares/notices-e.htm. Back.