Sticky Space? New Idea Says the Vacuum Could Be a Viscous Fluid Shaping the Cosmos

A new arXiv preprint proposes space may have bulk viscosity, effectively making the vacuum a viscous medium with spatial phonons that could slow cosmic expansion and better align DESI observations with reality. If true, this viscous-space model would challenge the standard Lambda-CDM cosmology and the cosmological constant, potentially redefining our understanding of dark energy. However, the idea is unreviewed and data-driven, with questions about whether viscosity is fundamental or a measurement artifact; upcoming data from Euclid and further DESI analyses will be crucial to test this hypothesis.