Evidence from type Ia supernovae for an accelerating Universe

Over the past five years two teams have used type Ia supernovae to trace the expansion of the Universe to a look back time more than 70% of the age of the Universe. These observations show an accelerating Universe which is best explained by a cosmological constant, or other form of dark energy with an equation of state near w=p/ρ=−1. There are many possible lurking systematic effects, and while difficult to completely eliminate, none of these appears large enough to challenge current results. However, as future experiments attempt to better characterize the equation of state of the matter leading to the observed acceleration, these systematic effects will ultimately limit progress.