>>10995714Not true. The currently established theory is a cosmological constant: a constant doubling time of the scale factor of the Universe. On the scale of galaxy clusters and smaller, gravity is strong enough to forever overcome this constant doubling time. Dark energy manifests itself on these scales as a microscopic acceleration between objects which is totally overwhelmed by gravity. The net effect is just a slight difference in orbital velocity from what you'd expect, but this is totally unnoticeable.
Another way of looking at it is that dark energy slowly redefines the distance between objects to be greater, but gravity is strong enough to reset the distance to what it was before.
In order to have a big rip scenario where galaxies and smaller structures are torn apart, the doubling time of the scale factor must decrease over time rather than remain constant.
