Context : Observational evidence of dark energy that makes the Universe nearly flat at the present epoch is very strong .

Aims : We study the link between spatial continuity and dark energy .

Methods : We assume that comoving space is a compact 3-manifold of constant curvature , described by a homogeneous Friedman-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker metric .
We assume that spatial continuity can not be violated , i.e .
that the global topology of the comoving section of the Universe can not change during post-quantum epochs .

Results : We find that if the Universe was flat and compact during early epochs , then the presently low values of the radiation and matter densities imply that dark energy was created as a spatial continuity effect .
Moreover , if the Universe is compact , then \Omega _ { \mathrm { tot } } = 1 is dynamically stable , where \Omega _ { \mathrm { tot } } is the total density parameter in units of the critical density .

Conclusions : Dark energy was observationally detected as a geometrical phenomenon .
It is difficult to imagine a simpler explanation for dark energy than spatial continuity , finiteness and homogeneity .