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It’s 3:47 in the morning, and LSU astronomy professor Bradley Schaefer is asleep in bed next to his wife, Martha, when a throbbing alarm penetrates his brain and pulls him awake. He rubs his eyes, yawns away the cobwebs, reaches for the beeper on his nightstand and turns it off. Schaefer knows the message is from ROTSE III Burst Response, which means a NASA satellite has recorded another Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) and this explosion of electromagnetic radiation 7 billion light-years away could unlock more secrets to the origins of the universe.

Back in January, Schaefer triggered the latest scientific controversy with a speech he gave before the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C. That tends to happen when a scientist’s research contradicts that of Albert Einstein. This is actually the second instance in as many years the LSU prof has made global headlines with his work, and both times people within the scientific community and outside of it have taken notice.

So just who does Bradley Schaefer think he is? More importantly, who is he really?

Like any good scientist Schaefer is completely unassuming. With his beaten-up sneakers, blue jeans and sandy John Lennon mop top, he makes no definitive claims about his controversial research. Despite the preliminary data, Schaefer believes it grossly inappropriate to claim he is a serious challenge to Einstein, much less on equal footing with the iconic astronomer.

He also is extremely protective of his private life—his wife declined to be interviewed for this article—but in person comes across congenial and painfully humble. He’ll probably want to kill me for writing such a detailed profile. “Why me?” he will ask with nervous laughter, and he’ll mean it.

Still, this everyman veneer masks a sort of matter-of-fact radicalism. A keen eye and daring spirit equipped Schaefer to discover the survival of the long-lost star catalogue of ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus, which, as it turns out, is on display at the National Archeological Museum in Naples chiseled into the Farnese Atlas. The discovery made headlines worldwide in early 2005 and would have made Schaefer’s literary hero, Sherlock Holmes, proud. (Schaefer is a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fanatic and counts Baton Rouge’s lack of a Sherlock Holmes Society as his only strike against the city.) But if last year’s revelation put Schaefer in the scientific spotlight, his new Einstein-doubting data has put him in the crosshairs.

Schaefer acknowledges the situation, but he isn’t worried. In fact, he predicted it. He eschews political sniping in favor of colorful discourse on the cosmos; a dialogue fueled by a child-like fascination with the stars and volumes of scientific intellectualism on the history of the universe. You can’t curb this kind of enthusiasm.

Some of Schaefer’s earliest memories are of he and his father—an insurance adjuster and avid bird watcher—looking up at New Mexico’s maverick night sky and pinpointing constellations and streaking comets. His family lived in Albuquerque, Los Cruces and Pueblo, N.M. before moving to Littleton, Colo.

It was there that Schaefer’s seventh grade science teacher encouraged his interest in the stars. Before Schaefer was old enough to drive, his dutiful father made regular trips with him to the local planetarium. By high school, he was hosting public nights at a nearby 20-inch Alvin Clark telescope and devouring Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series of sci-fi novels.

As an eager student at Arapahoe High School, Schaefer never dreamed he would grow up to question the theories of Einstein, his mental model and hero. He remains hesitant to make that claim today. After earning two degrees from MIT, Schaefer served a stint at the University of Texas in Austin, where he first began his groundbreaking research on Gamma-Ray Bursts.

For years astronomers had wondered whether the GRBs they were observing with satellites could also be used to measure the rate at which the universe is expanding and the mysterious force that seems to be counteracting gravity to produce this expansion (called dark energy). But the LSU astronomer was the first scientist to actually do it.

“Brad is very bright, engaged and enthusiastic but can also be sensitive and perceptive,” says Craig Wheeler, a professor of astronomy at UT. “He started this work here, and I recall the first tentative diagrams he made showing that this might work.” Wheeler notes the uncertainties are larger for studying GRBs than for the closer supernovae (or stellar explosions), but Schaefer’s procedure is valid in principal.

OK, so a humble astronomer now working at a humble Louisiana school is causing a stir. Big deal, right?

Actually, it is for several reasons. Right now, the vast majority of ground-based telescope time and dark energy research goes to the study of Type 1a supernovae. If studying the more distant (and therefore, further back in time) GRBs proves reliable, NASA is going to have to redress the balance. And no one—especially a scientist—likes to lose his gig.

While independent astronomers have just begun follow-up research, Schaefer’s preliminary results put Einstein’s controversial theory of a cosmological constant in serious jeopardy. It has long been known the universe is not static, but Schaefer’s work with GRBs strongly suggests the universe is not only expanding, but this expansion is picking up speed. Schaefer now has a 97% confidence level Einstein’s theory is invalid.

So if the vacuum of space is not filled with Einstein’s constant flow of matter, what is it filled with? And why are the universe’s oldest stars racing away from us with a foot on the pedal? These are the questions Schaefer is out to answer.

According to physics heavyweight Michael Turner from the University of Chicago, other forces could be at work. It is possible the cosmos contains hidden dimensions, Turner recently told National Public Radio. But he cautions the Schaefer data must be supported by others before the LSU professor could be awarded a trip to Sweden for the Nobel Prize.

Confirmed results and accolades are years away, but Schaefer now finds himself in the middle of a politicized tug-of-war between two powerful astronomy camps: the supernovae scientists and the GRB scientists. What’s more, one supernovae group has developed a satellite plan called SNAP and is vying to be NASA’s next billion-dollar satellite program.

“The supernovae astronomers thought they had it sewn up, but we’ve got the GRB satellites already up there,” Schaefer says, referring to orbiters like the SWIFT satellite. “They weren’t launched to do cosmology, but they’re getting data for free, right now, as opposed to maybe 10 years and a billion dollars from now.”

Schaefer claims neutral ground in the debate—in fact, he used to work with a prominent supernovae group. But even if his stance is mute, his results are not. Some scientists are quietly taking sides while others are waging a visible war of words in the pages of the Wall Street Journal and Scientific American. “I flat out don’t believe this result,” astronomer Adam Reiss told The New York Times in January. Schaefer believes Reiss is biased toward supernovae research and his comments are only aimed at discrediting the new GRB methods. “Clearly, he’s not doing science, he’s doing politics,” Schaefer says.

Saul Perlmutter of UC-Berkeley is one scientist who is staying out of the fray.

“It’ll be fun to see how it goes,” the cosmology professor says, before cautioning not to jump to conclusions. “You see, you’ve got to have a period of trying to understand the tool before you can trust the instruments.”

Schaefer estimates it will take years to produce definitive, widely accepted answers about the expansion of the universe and dark energy, and that is the way it should be.

“I knew this Gamma-Ray Burst Hubble Diagram would be used by many people for their own purposes,” he says. “But they’re playing for big stakes here, and a lot of NASA money goes to the winner.”