From the November 2009 issue

Dark energy is consistently described as a property of space itself. Does this mean that, in the total absence of matter, the universe would still exist?

Dennis Demcheck, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
By | Published: November 23, 2009 | Last updated on May 18, 2023

April 2009 WE pie chart wmap
Cosmic recipe. Normal or “baryonic” matter (atoms) makes up about 4.6 percent of the present universe. The rest consists of about 23 percent dark matter and 72 percent dark energy.
WMAP Science Team

So space can exist without regard to what fills it. That said, it is not clear that dark energy is a “property of space.”