The Universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate according to recent observations of supernovae. Astronomers believe that a certain class of supernova explosions - so-called type 1a supernovae - all have the same intrinsic luminosity, which means that their observed luminosity can be used to estimate their distance from Earth. By observing the redshift and the brightness of 58 supernova, two team of astronomers - one led by Saul Perlmutter from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the other by Alex Filippenko of the University of California at Berkeley - have found that the remnants of nearly all type 1a supernovae are at least 15 % further away than the standard model of the Universe predicts. This implies that the Universe is 'open' and will expand forever. It also suggests that a bizarre quantum force is affecting the expansion rate.